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May 20, 2016ThomasJWhiting rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
GOOD 1942 b/w Orson Welles film set when automobile began transforming the US to 'urban' from rural horseless carriage days. The film itself is very high quality Orson Welles, with terrific staging/settings, fabulous shadowy black and white filmography, etc., but the story line and characters are rather dark/downbeat and didn't really engage me so I spent more time looking at 'the scenery' and film production than being caught up in the character drama. But I did again rather enjoy Agnes Moorehead in her role as Aunt Fannie - and noticed she and actress Margaret Hamilton (the wicked witch from Wizard of Oz) look remarkably similar. The film has a rather interesting controversial production history with almost an hour of Orson Welles material cut from the final release - and a change in the film ending. Apparently RKO wanted to 'speed it up' - kind of ironic for a film which is rather negative about rise of automobile and its effects on transportation. Wikipedia has a lengthy informative entry about the film which I heartily recommend. It even includes descriptions of 14 of the deleted cuts - and more. This is a classic movie which I had never seen before - glad I did!