What happens
George Amberson Minafer, the spoiled only grandson of the proud Amberson family, lives in a Midland town once dominated by the Ambersons. This adaptation of Booth Tarkington's novel The Magnificent Ambersons is presented on The Mercury Theatre on the Air, the Campbell Playhouse series, broadcast on October 29, 1939, with Orson Welles producing and Walter Huston in the cast. The story opens with the family's rise in the 1870s, when Major Amberson builds his fortune on new streets and mansions. It then follows Isabel's marriage to Wilbur Minafer and the arrogant behavior of their son George as he grows up and returns from college. Eugene Morgan, the automobile-minded widower who once loved Isabel, reappears in his life, and George's pride is tested as the town changes around him.
A Midland town in America, from the 1870s through the early twentieth century, centered on the Amberson mansion on Amberson Boulevard.
Characters: George Amberson Minafer, Major Amberson, Isabel Amberson Minafer, Wilbur Minafer, Eugene Morgan, Fred Amberson, Lucy, Jack Amberson
Listen for: Eugene Morgan's visit to the Amberson ball and his conversations with George and Fred, which set up the tensions the story turns on.
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.