In a small Midwestern town in the early 1900s, Isabel turns down a proposal from the charming Eugene in favour of the steady but unremarkable Wilbur. Years later, their son George has grown into a controlling and deeply unpopular figure in the community. After Wilbur’s death, Eugene reappears and proposes to Isabel once more, but George stands in the way. Based on Booth Tarkington’s 1916 novel, Orson Welles’s visually stunning second feature is a richly emotional family saga and a tender farewell to a lost era of American life. The film is also at the centre of one of cinema’s most heartbreaking stories of lost footage, making what survives all the more remarkable.

One-off screening presented on 35mm film.