HOLLYWOOD - Director Robert Wise (West Side Story, The Sound of Music), who edited the original version of Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons, has added his voice to those of TV critics who have generally excoriated a TV remake of the movie due to air on A&E channel Sunday night. ("A fat chunk of lead," commented Matthew Gilbert in today's Boston Globe.)
"It makes you appreciate our version that much more," Wise told today's Los Angeles Times.
Wise also denied claims made by Welles himself that the studio ordered scenes removed from the original version in order to "destroy" him.
"I've always maintained that in its original version, Ambersons may have been a greater work of art, but we had to get the film so it would hold people's attention," Wise told the Times. "Remember, back then the average picture was 90 minutes; if you had something that went over an hour and a half you were in trouble."