The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)

Joseph Cotten: Eugene Morgan

Photos 

Quotes 

• Jack : My gosh, the old times are certainly starting all over again.

  Eugene : Old times, not a bit. There aren't any old times. When times are gone, they're not old, they're dead. There aren't any times but new times.

• Eugene : I know what your son is to you and it frightens me. Let me explain a little. I don't think he'll change. At twenty-one or twenty-two, so many things appear solid and permanent and terrible. Which forty sees are nothing but disappearing miasma. Forty can't tell twenty about this. Twenty can find out only by getting to be forty.

• Maj. Amberson : So your devilish machines are going to ruin all your old friend, eh Gene? Do you really think they're going to change the face of the land?

  Eugene : They're already doing it major and it can't be stopped. Automobiles...

  [cut off by George] 

  George : Automobiles are a useless nuisance.

  Maj. Amberson : What did you say George?

  George : I said automobiles are a useless nuisance. Never amount to anything but a nuisance and they had no business to be invented.

  Jack : Of course you forget that Mr. Morgan makes them, also did his share in inventing them. If you weren't so thoughtless, he might think you were rather offensive.

  Eugene : I'm not sure George is wrong about automobiles. With all their speed forward they may be a step backward in civilization. May be that they won't add to the beauty of the world or the life of the men's souls, I'm not sure. But automobiles have come and almost all outwards things will be different because of what they bring. They're going to alter war and they're going to alter peace. And I think men's minds are going to be changed in subtle ways because of automobiles. And it may be that George is right. May be that in ten to twenty years from now that if we can see the inward change in men by that time, I shouldn't be able to defend the gasoline engine but agree with George - that automobiles had no business to be invented.

• [last lines] 

  Eugene : Fanny, I wish you could have seen Georgie's face when he saw Lucy. You know what he said to me when we went into that room? He said, "You must have known my mother wanted you to come here today, so that I could ask you to forgive me." We shook hands. I never noticed before how much like Isabel Georgie looks. You know something, Fanny? I wouldn't tell this to anybody but you. But it seemed to me as if someone else was in that room. And that through me, she brought her boy unto shelter again. And that I'd been true at last, to my true love.