Yeah, it's not that I'm against blow 'em up films...I'll admit I liked the second Die Hard film as a total popcorn movie (not a fan of the Die Hard stuff but I saw that film when I was depressed and living in California and all the snow in it made me miss New England...like some sort of big screen snow globe).

Ambersons was Welles follow up to Citizen Kane and the film was taken away from him after he took too long editing it. He was then sent to South America to make a propaganda film and while he was there Robert Wise was brought in to recut and "fix" the film. They thought it was too depressing and so they chopped around 45 or 50 minutes out of the film and shot some new scenes and a happy ending all without Welles. Basically Welles always felt they gutted his film and this would become normal procedure on Welles pictures going forward. The 45 to 50 minutes that Wise hacked out of the film was later burned when RKO was cleaning out their vaults. They had just run out of storage space. Welles had a work print with him in South America and this print is thought to still exist...maybe...but nobody knows where it might be. So, Criterion, being the great company they are, have been working putting together lots of Welles goodies the most exciting of which is "The Other Side of the Wind" a never before seen Welles film. Welles had put together the first 50 minutes of it and Peter Bogdanovich has now completed the editing process on the rest of the film. They are actually going to release it into theatres in 2008! Ok, sorry...geeking out a bit there.

Anyway, I'm thinking that Criterion has not released Ambersons on dvd because there is either a rights issue or they may have a lead on finding Welles workprint to restore the film to what Welles had intended. Probably more info than anybody wanted but I'm a big fan...