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Seventy-year-old
newspaper tycoon Charles Foster Kane dies in his palatial Florida home,
Xanadu, after uttering the single word "Rosebud." While watching a
newsreel summarizing the years during which Kane built a dying newspaper
into a major empire, married and divorced twice, ran unsuccessfully for
governor and saw the collapse of his newspaper empire during the
Depression, an editor decides they have not captured the essence of the
controversial newspaperman and assigns reporter Jerry Thompson to
discover the meaning of Kane's last word.
Thompson first approaches Kane's second
wife, singer Susan Alexander, in the Atlantic City nightclub where she
now performs. After the drunken Susan orders Thompson to leave,
the accommodating bartender reports her claim that she had never heard
of Rosebud.
Next, Thompson reads the unpublished memoirs
of Wall Street financier Walter Parks Thatcher, Kane's guardian and
trustee of the mining fortune left to Kane by his mother. Thatcher
first meets young Kane in 1871 at his mother's Colorado boardinghouse.
Learning that she has become wealthy from mining shares left her by a
former boarder, she is determined that her son will be reared and
educated in the East.
As
young Charlie plays outside with his sled, Mrs. Kane hands over
management of the mine's returns to Thatcher, against her husband's
wishes, then grants the financier guardianship over her son.
Despite the boy's protests, he is sent away to live with Thatcher.
When Kane turns twenty-five, he assumes
control of the world's sixth largest private fortune, and while
professing disinterest in most of his holdings, writes Thatcher that he
intends to run The Inquirer, a small, New York newspaper acquired
through a foreclosure. He moves into the paper's offices and, with
the help of his best friend, Jedidiah Leland, who acts as the drama
critic, turns it into a lively, muckraking publication, which attacks
slum landlords, swindlers and big business.
In 1898, The Inquirer attempts to
draw the United States into war with Spain. After the 1929 stock
market crash, Kane relinquishes control of his empire to Thatcher's
syndicate. Thompson finishes his reading of Thatcher's memoir
without learning anything about Rosebud.
Thompson next questions Bernstein, formerly
Kane's general editor and now chairman of the board. Bernstein
describes the early days of Kane's tenure at The Inquirer.
After Kane and Leland take over the publication in 1892, Kane prints a
declaration of principles―that he will report the news honestly and will
make the paper a champion of his readers' rights as citizens and as
human beings. Leland senses the document's importance and keeps
the handwritten declaration as a memorial.
Six
years later, when Kane acquires the top reporters from the rival paper,
whose circulation The Inquirer has surpassed, Leland worries that
Kane's approach to the news will also resemble his rival's. During
this period, Kane begins to collect the European statues and furniture
that will later crowd the rooms of Xanadu. On one European trip,
Kane meets and becomes engaged to Emily Monroe Norton, the President's
niece, whom he marries in 1900. After relating these events,
Bernstein suggests that Rosebud was probably something that Kane lost,
perhaps a woman.
Taking Bernstein's advice, Thompson visits
Leland, a self-described "disagreeable old man," in the hospital where
he is living out his old age. Leland claims Kane believed in
nothing except himself, but suggests that Kane's story is about how he
lost love because he had none to give. As Kane's empire expands,
his marriage to Emily deteriorates. One night in 1915, Kane
encounters Susan as she is leaving a pharmacy after purchasing a
toothache remedy. Susan innocently offers to let Kane, who has
been spattered by mud from a passing carriage, use her apartment to
clean up. Kane is at ease with Susan, who has no idea of his
importance and, when he learns that her mother wanted her to become an
opera singer, requests that she sing for him.
In
1916, Kane runs for governor against corrupt political boss Jim Gettys.
After a successful campaign speech, Emily sends their son home alone and
asks Kane to accompany her to Susan's boardinghouse, where they find
Gettys with Susan. Gettys admits that he forced Susan to contact
Emily and tells Kane that he will reveal their relationship unless he
withdraws from the campaign. Despite the hurt that scandal will
bring to his family and Susan, Kane refuses, convinced that he has the
love of the electorate. He is mistaken, however, and loses the
race. Leland accuses Kane of treating "the people" as if he owned
them and asks to be transferred to The Inquirer 's Chicago
branch.
After Emily divorces him, Kane marries Susan
and, in 1919, builds the Chicago Opera House for her. Susan's
voice is very poor, however, and her debut is met with ridicule, except
by The Inquirer critics. When Kane finds Leland slumped
over his typewriter in a drunken stupor after beginning an unfavorable
review of Susan's performance, he finishes the notice himself, retaining
the negative viewpoint, but then fires his old friend.
Thompson now returns to Atlantic City to
question Susan again. She insists that it was Kane's idea that she
have an operatic career and describes their tempestuous life together.
During a noisy quarrel with Susan, Kane receives a special delivery from
Leland, returning the $25,000 check Kane sent after firing him and
including the handwritten copy of the declaration of principles, which
Kane burns.
When
Susan begs to quit, Kane insists that he will be humiliated if she
leaves the stage, and forces her to continue singing until she attempts
suicide. Later, they retire to Xanadu, where a bored Susan spends
her days working jigsaw puzzles. Finally fed up with his
overbearing attempts to orchestrate her life, Susan reproaches Kane for
trying to buy her affections with jewels and other material things.
He slaps her in anger, and she leaves him. Her story finished,
Susan sends Thompson to talk to Raymond, the butler at Xanadu.
Thompson confesses to Susan that he feels sorry for Kane, and Susan
admits that she does, too.
At Xanadu, Raymond agrees to speak with
Thompson for a price, then relates the events following Susan's
departure. The furious Kane tears apart Susan's room, until he
comes across a small glass snow globe with a tiny cabin inside.
Kane picks it up, murmurs "Rosebud" and leaves the room, seemingly
unaware of the servants who surround him.
Still as ignorant of the significance of
Kane's dying word as when he started, Thompson prepares to leave Xanadu
with the other reporters and photographers. Passing through rooms
where Kane's possessions are being inventoried and crated, Thompson is
now convinced that even if he had learned the meaning of Rosebud, it
would not have explained the man. Unnoticed among the boxes and
crates is an old child's sled. As a workman throws the sled into a
furnace, the word Rosebud, painted across the top, is consumed by the
flames.
Notes
This film's end credits begin with the statement, “Most of the principal
actors in Citizen Kane are new to motion pictures. The
Mercury Theatre is proud to introduce them.” Organized by
Orson Welles and John Houseman in November 1937, The Mercury Theatre
won critical acclaim for its productions, including Julius Caesar,
The Shoemaker's Holiday, Heartbreak House, and Danton's
Death. However, it was
The War of the Worlds, Welles's convincing radio portrayal of an
invasion by Martians, broadcast on Halloween night, 1938, that brought
him instant celebrity. According to a 1940 SEP series on
Welles, Hollywood studios had offered the director a contract for $300 a
week as early as 1936. Published accounts of Hollywood's interest
did not appear until July 1939, when news items and RKO publicity
announced that Welles, at age twenty-four and with no professional film
experience, had signed a carte-blanche contract with RKO Radio Pictures,
Inc. to produce, write, direct and act in one film per year.
Welles was to be paid $150,000 per film in addition to a percentage of
the gross, but more important to him was the stipulation that no one,
not even RKO's President or Board of Directors, could interfere with him
or see his work until it was completed. Life reported that
when RKO executives came on the set of Citizen Kane unannounced,
Welles told his company to start a baseball game and walked off.)
According to the SEP series, Welles once described the RKO studio
as “the greatest railroad train a boy ever had.” In her LAEx
column, Louella Parsons observed that Welles “rode into Hollywood with a
contract that never has been equaled in the entire history of motion
pictures” and noted that he signed with RKO after Warner Bros. and MGM
“refused to give him all the privileges that he asked.” The
Hollywood community greeted Welles with hostility. Gossip
columnists repeatedly referred to him as “Little Orson Annie” and
“Arson” Welles, and called attention to his beard, which he grew for
stage roles and kept for his planned first film role.
Welles brought with him to Hollywood a
number of staff members from the Mercury Theatre and established Mercury
Productions, Inc. in partnership with Jack Moss. Early in August
1939, according to HR, Welles began working with John Houseman
and Herbert Drake on a script for his first film, an adaptation of the
Joseph Conrad novel Heart of Darkness. Welles planned to
play both of the major roles, Kurtz and Marlow, and to use a subjective
camera. SEP reported that he was also to be the chief
scenic artist and prop man. Heart of Darkness was to
feature many actors from the Mercury Theatre and Welles' radio company,
the Mercury Theatre of the Air, including Everett Sloane, Ray Collins,
Gus Schilling, Edgar Barrier, and Erskine Sanford. Austrian
actress
Dita Parlo was wanted for the female lead. Production was set
to begin on November 1, 1939 but, according to DV, RKO pushed
back the date to give the construction department more time to build the
unusual sets. Fourteen actors were on salary in November 1939, but
in December 1939, pre-production was halted. RKO announced that
Welles would first make The Smiler with a Knife, variously called
a comedy-mystery-drama and a thriller and based on a novel by Nicholas
Blake, which the studio had recently purchased and for which Welles was
writing the screenplay. The lead was to be a woman, and Welles was
to play a supporting role. In a later interview, Welles stated
that the studio would not let him cast
Lucille Ball in the lead, so the project was shelved.
According to RKO publicity, before Welles began work on Citizen Kane,
he “indulged himself in the most concentrated course in movie making
ever attempted, with the result that he has a working knowledge of every
studio department.”
The initial rough draft script of Citizen
Kane is dated April 16, 1940 and entitled “American.”
This draft, in which “Xanadu” was called the “Alhambra,” includes many
scenes similar to incidents in the life of William Randolph Hearst,
which were subsequently dropped. Modern sources dispute whether
Welles or his co-writer, Herman J. Mankiewicz, should be given credit
for the various drafts. Some sources claim that Welles tried to
keep Mankiewicz's name off the screen credits, while others argue that
while Mankiewicz's contract stipulated that he would not necessarily get
an onscreen credit, Welles, in correspondence with his attorney, stated
that he wanted Mankiewicz to get credit. In a deposition taken for
a 1949 lawsuit, Welles stated that Mankiewicz wrote the dialogue for the
first two drafts, and that he (Welles) worked on the third draft and
“participated all along in conversations concerning the structure of the
scenes.” RKO story files at UCLA Arts - Special Collections
Library contain extensive notes dated April 30, 1940 by Welles
concerning desired changes to the April 16, 1940 draft.
Subsequently, a number of drafts and continuities were written,
concluding with the third revised final script, dated July 16, 1940.
According to modern sources, Mankiewicz claimed to the Screen Writers'
Guild that he should be given sole writing credit. According to
the RKO Billing Memorandum file for the film at UCLA, on January 11,
1941, Mankiewicz signed a statement giving his consent for advertising
to omit a screenplay credit. On January 18, 1941, Dore Schary of
the Screen Writers' Guild wrote to Mercury Productions stating that the
proposed credit “screenplay by Herman J. Mankiewicz and
Orson Welles” seemed to be in violation of a clause in the
Producer-Screen Writers' Guild Agreement which stated that “No
production executives will be entitled to share in the screen play
authorship screen credit unless he does the screen play writing entirely
without the collaboration of any other writer.” Subsequently, on
January 22, 1941, Welles and Mankiewicz signed a joint statement that
“having carefully considered their intentions relative to the contract
dated June 19, 1940, and having carefully considered the contribution of
each of them in the writing of the original screen story for Citizen
Kane,” they agreed to the screen credits as they appear on the film.
On January 27, 1941, the Screen Writers' Guild met and decided that the
Guild had no jurisdiction in the matter because of the particular
contract Mankiewicz had signed. A memo in the RKO files, dated
June 5, 1941, states that both Mankiewicz and Welles worked 111 days on
the screenplay: December 7 - December 23, 1939; February 19 - May
11, 1940; and June 18 - July 27, 1940. The memo also indicates
that Houseman worked 87 days: February 21 - April 27, 1940; and
April 29 - June 1, 1940.
In an undated statement included in the RKO
files at UCLA, Welles described his intent in making the film: “I
wished to make a motion picture which was not a narrative of action so
much as an examination of character. For this, I desired a man of
many sides and many aspects. It was my idea to show that six or
more people could have as many widely divergent opinions concerning the
nature of a single personality.” After discussing how he came to
choose a newspaper publisher as his main character, Welles continued,
“There have been many motion pictures and novels rigorously obeying the
formula of the 'success story.' I wished to do something quite
different. I wished to make a picture which might be called a
'failure story.'“ Welles noted that his character “had never made
what is known as 'transference' from his mother. Hence his failure
with his wives.” Welles concluded, “The protagonist of my 'failure
story' must retreat from a democracy which his money fails to buy and
his power fails to control. There are two retreats possible:
death and the womb . The house was the womb.” In an article
published in the New York publication Friday during the controversy that
held up the film's release, Welles further explained his intent:
“Kane, we are told, loved only his mother—only his newspaper—only his
second wife—only himself. Maybe he loved all of these, or none. It
is for the audience to judge...He is never judged with the objectivity
of an author, and the point of the picture is not so much the solution
of the problem as its presentation.”
In an interview, Welles stated that Gregg
Toland, who won the Academy Award in 1940 for his work on Wuthering
Heights, asked to work with him. Toland, in a Popular
Photography article, stated that with the backing of Welles, who had
a reputation for experimentation in the theater, he “was able to test
and prove several ideas generally accepted as being radical in Hollywood
circles.” In an article in AmCin, Toland explained the
rationale and technique of the “radical departures from conventional
practice” that he and Welles devised for Citizen Kane. They
felt “that if it was possible, the picture should be brought to the
screen in such a way that the audience would feel it was looking at
reality, rather than merely at a movie.” They rejected direct
cuts, wherever possible, favoring instead “to plan action so that the
camera could pan or dolly from one angle to another” or to pre-plan “our
angles and compositions so that action which ordinarily would be shown
in direct cuts would be shown in a single, longer scene—often one in
which important action might take place simultaneously in widely
separated points in extreme foreground and background.”
Because of the film's huge, deep sets,
twin-arc broadsides, which were developed for Technicolor film, were
used for lighting. With increased illumination, use of the new
super speed emulsion Super XX, as well as wide-angle lenses coated with
the recently developed Vard “Opticoat” non-glare coating, and stopping
down, became possible. Toland relates, “We photographed nearly all
of our interior scenes at apertures not greater than f:8—and often
smaller.” At that time, most Hollywood films were shot with
apertures between f:2.3 and f:3.2. Use of the 24mm lens was
virtually unheard of, according to a 1947 NYT article, because of
“the cruelty with which it exposes facial flaws in actors and actresses.
Orson Welles employed it extensively in his notable Citizen Kane
in 1940, but since then it has been largely relegated to the documentary
field.” Toland, through experimentation, was able to get sharp
focus in even the larger sets, which extended the length of two stages
at the RKO-Pathé studio, a distance of 200 feet. For purposes of
realism, Welles and Toland ordered that ceilings be built for the
majority of their sets and planned “unusually low camera-setups, so that
we could shoot upward and take advantage of the more realistic effects
of those ceilings.” Another advantage of the ceilings, which were
made of acoustically porous muslin, was that microphones could be placed
above them to avoid problems with shadows. In a Theatre Arts
article, Toland noted that they spent four days perfecting the scene in
which Mrs. Kane signs Thatcher's papers while young Charles plays with
his sled in the snow.
Citizen Kane was the first film to be
printed on a newly developed fine grain positive, which, according to
HR, “improves the fidelity of both sound recording and re-recording
through removal of fine particles of silver nitrate that formerly dotted
all positive prints.” Toland insisted on using the new fine grain
release positive, and according to RKO memos, RKO president George J.
Schaefer agreed to change the lab for the film to Consolidated from De
Luxe, which could not do the job because the new stock required about
twenty times the normal intensity of printing lighting. In
recognition of Toland's contributions to the picture, Welles signed a
waiver with the Screen Directors' Guild in February 1941, authorizing
his own credit card to include Toland's photography credit.
Photographic makeup and wardrobe tests for
the production, which was then called “Orson Welles #3,” began on
April 16, 1940, with Russell Metty as cameraman. Metty also shot
tests on April 26 and May 1, showing Welles at varying ages.
According to LAT, the film was announced in May at RKO's annual
convention in New York and at that time was called John Citizen,
U.S.A. This title is not included in an RKO list of working
titles, however. Toland is first credited for tests shot on June
14, 1940. On June 19, 1940, a test was shot with Welles,
Joseph Cotten and Evelyn Meyers, in the role of “Susan.”
Production records for June 24, 1940 indicate that
Ruth Warrick also tested for the role of “Susan”; because no other
source, contemporary or modern, including Warrick's autobiography,
mentions that she was under consideration for the role, this may have
been an erroneous entry. Dorothy Comingore, then called Linda
Winters, the name she used in a number of films in the 1930s, made her
first test on July 1, 1940 with Welles, William Alland and Terry
Belmont, who was not in the final film.
On June 29, 1940, the projection room scene
in which “News on the March” is shown, was shot. It is
listed in the RKO production records as a test, as were scenes shot on
the 1st, 3rd, 6th, 22th, 23rd, 24th and 25th of July 1940. Scenes
shot during this period that were kept in the final film include
Thompson's first meeting with Susan; Kane's discovery of Susan's suicide
attempt; Kane slapping Susan in the tent in the Everglades; Kane
speaking from a flag-draped platform; Kane being interviewed on the boat
deck; Susan confronting Kane in their Chicago hotel room; Susan's
singing lesson with Signor Matiste; Kane shaking hands with Chamberlain;
and Kane standing with Hitler and Goering. In later interviews,
Welles explained that he shot these scenes under the guise of tests, so
that once begun, the RKO front office, with whom he had been having
difficulties, would find it hard to stop the film.
Welles entertained the press at a party on
August 1, 1940 with footage from the White House wedding party scene.
The press speculated on the film's subject matter, which Welles
purposely kept secret. Although NYT reported the official
version—that the film “covers the last sixty years of the American
scene” and that Welles's role was that of a “robber baron
industrialist”—HR, on July 29, 1940, stated, “despite denials
from the
Orson Welles contingent, insiders insist Little Orson Annie's
flicker is based on the life of a well-known publisher. Treatment
of the personality is sympathetic throughout.”
Principal shooting continued until October
23, 1940, with two halts due to illnesses of Toland and Welles. On
August 10, 1940, during the scene in which Kane yells at Boss Jim Gettys
on the steps of Susan's second apartment, Welles fell about ten feet and
suffered a chipped ankle. For two weeks, he shot around himself
and directed from a wheelchair. On days when Welles filmed scenes
requiring a lot of makeup, he would report to work before dawn and hold
conferences as makeup artist Maurice Seiderman worked on his face.
On August 30, the company worked through the night on a rewritten scene
depicting Leland confronting Kane after Kane loses the election.
Welles reworked scenes as he shot and often gave extras lines to speak
that were not in the script. Considerable time was spent after
October 30, 1940 with inserts, added scenes, special effects, retakes
and a trailer. Beginning November 20, Harry Wild took over as
cameraman, shooting the trailer and some scenes in the newsreel,
including the Union Square speaker and the Spanish generals with Kane.
The final shot, of Alland in front of the hospital before his interview
with Leland, was taken on January 4, 1941 by cameraman Russ Cully, who
also photographed one day in December 1940.
On July 15, 1940, Joseph I. Breen, director
of the Production Code Administration, pointed out in a letter to RKO
that one scene in the script was in violation of the Code because of its
setting in a brothel. Despite the warning, Welles filmed the
scene, which occurs after the party at The Inquirer office celebrating
the acquisition of The Chronicle staff. The scene includes
actresses Joan Blair and Frances Neal, playing “Georgie,” the madam, and
“Ethel,” a prostitute whom Georgie introduces to Leland, respectively.
This scene was not in the final film. Joan Blair does appear as
one of the dancers in the party scene, however. Another scene was
cut: in The Inquirer 's composing room, during the night before
Kane's first paper is to hit the streets, editor Carter resigns, and
Kane commands the composing room foreman Smathers to remake the pages
five minutes before they are to go to press. When Smathers
objects, Kane shoves the forms of type onto the floor and tells him that
after proofs are pulled, he will check the pages again and “then, if I
can't find any way to improve them again—I suppose we'll have to go to
press.” Smathers was played by Benny Rubin, who was originally
listed in the credit titles. On January 21, 1941, after his scene
was cut, a memo was sent from Richard Baer (Welles's assistant, who,
under the name Richard Barr, later became a well-known theatrical
producer and director) to Douglas Travers stating Rubin's credit must be
eliminated. According to production reports, Ed Hemmer was also in
the cut scene.
Edgar Barrier was originally considered for
the roles of Rawlston and Raymond. Glenn Turnbull and Carl Thomas,
hired as a song-and-dance team for The Inquirer party sequence,
participated in rehearsals but not in filming. Albert Frazier is
listed in production files as a man in a gorilla suit for Xanadu zoo
scenes, but no gorilla character appears in the completed picture.
Joe Recht's voice was used in re-recording. Pat O'Malley's listing
in the December 1940 Players Directory Bulletin includes Citizen Kane
in his credits, but no confirming evidence concerning his participation
has been located. Earl Seaman was scheduled to play a stagehand,
but was not listed in the production reports.
The scene in which cars drive along a beach
on the way to the Everglades picnic was actually shot at Point Mugu,
California, and some shots of the exterior of Xanadu in the “News on the
March” sequence were taken at Balboa Park in San Diego, and at Busch
Gardens in Florida, according to RKO Production Records. Stock
footage for the film was obtained from Pathé News, including segments
entitled “Red Party, Strikes, Etc.,” “Graveyard of Ships,” “Fang and
Claw” and “White Wings,” and from General Film Library, Inc., including
segments entitled “San Francisco Earthquake” and “Spanish American War.”
Notes dated April 18, 1940 on suggested shots to be included in the
newsreel sequence state that the Congressional Investigating Committee
scene would be a reproduction of an existing J.P. Morgan newsreel.
Citizen Kane marked the screen debut
of many actors, including Cotten, Warrick, Agnes Moorehead, Ray Collins,
Erskine Sanford, Everett Sloane and Paul Stewart, all of whom had worked
with Welles in theater productions or radio broadcasts. According
to RKO records, Sloane was paid $2,400 “in consideration for shaving his
head.” Citizen Kane was also the first film for composer
Bernard Herrmann, who had worked with Welles on the radio.
Although Van Nest Polglase got screen credit as Art Director, it was the
practice at RKO for Polglase, head of the department, to get credit on
all RKO films, no matter what his contribution. According to
Welles, Perry Ferguson designed all the sets, which numbered over 110.
Welles, in trade paper ads the day of the film's Hollywood premiere,
gave thanks “to everybody who gets screen credit for Citizen Kane
and thanks to those who don't: to all the actors, the crew, the
office, the musicians, everybody, and particularly to Maurice Seiderman,
the best makeup man in the world.” According to a memo dated
November 5, 1940, Welles wanted to give screen credit to Seiderman, who
later worked with him on
Touch
of Evil. RKO officials were reluctant to give screen credit
for makeup and perhaps establish a precedent, and pointed out that
giving credit to Seiderman, an apprentice, “might jeopardize his
personal situation with the Union,” according to a November 23, 1940
memo. Welles continued to insist that Seiderman's name be included
in the credits, until January 13, 1941, when a memo issued by Welles
through Richard Baer dictated that makeup credits be eliminated.
Welles also decided to remove credit for set decorations. Although
Hugh McDowell was the soundman from July 22 through September 3, he also
did not receive screen credit.
In an article written for NYT in May
1941, Herrmann revealed that Welles allowed him twelve weeks to write
the score, a much longer time than was usually allotted to the composer.
Herrmann was thus able to “work out a general artistic plan” and “to do
my own orchestration and conducting.” Instead of writing the music
after the film was completely shot, the practice with most Hollywood
films, Herrmann was able to work as the film progressed, allowing for
many sequences to be “tailored to match the music,” particularly the
montages, for which he wrote complete musical numbers. Herrmann
composed two main motifs: “One—a simple four-note figure in the
brass—is that of Kane's power...The second motif is that of Rosebud.
Heard as a solo on the vibraphone, it first appears during the death
scene at the very beginning of the picture. It is heard again and
again throughout the film under various guises, and if followed closely,
is a clue to the ultimate identity of Rosebud itself.” Herrmann
commented that he used “radio scoring,” musical cues lasting only a few
seconds, a great deal, that “most of the cues were orchestrated for
unorthodox instrumental combinations” and that sound effects were
blended with music to intensify scenes. The music included in the
“News on the March” segment, Herrmann noted, was taken from the
RKO files.
Work was completed by January 18, 1941, and
a complete print was ready for screening. The film, as of January
21, was 11,041 feet, or approximately 123 minutes, according to a report
from editor Robert Wise. Subsequently, the film was cut to 10,734
feet, or 119 minutes. According to an RKO cost sheet dated March
28, 1942, the final cost of the film was $839,727. Before
production, the budget was estimated at $723,800. The film was
scheduled to have its premiere on February 14, 1941 at Radio City Music
Hall, but complications set in after a screening given on January 9,
1941 for Louella Parsons, motion picture editor of the Hearst papers.
According to DV, Parsons insisted on a screening after an article
about the film appeared in Friday, in which Welles ridiculed her for
previously praising him and stated, “Wait until the woman finds out that
the picture is about her boss.” Friday subsequently allowed Welles
space to deny that he ever spoke the quote, but meanwhile, Hearst
editors were ordered to keep publicity, advertisements and reviews of
all RKO films out of their newspapers. Parsons threatened RKO
president George J. Schaefer that Hearst would bring a great deal of
pressure on the motion picture industry if the film were released.
According to NYT, Louis B. Mayer of MGM and Harry M. Warner of
Warner Bros. were then contacted, and Hearst representatives began
investigating the “alien” situation in Hollywood, “something about which
the industry is most sensitive.” Adela Rogers St. John, a Hearst
columnist, began gathering information for a story on Welles's romantic
adventures, and a Congressional investigation of Hollywood was hinted at
by Senator Burton K. Wheeler.
In a statement printed in NYT in
January 1941, Welles contended that the film “is not based upon the life
of Mr. Hearst or anyone else. On the other hand, had Mr. Hearst
and similar financial barons not lived during the period we discuss,
Citizen Kane could not have been made.” In the previously
quoted statement on the intent of the film, found in the RKO story files
at UCLA, Welles noted that in order to show the many divergent opinions
concerning one individual, he decided that his character should be “an
extremely public man.” He considered using a fictitious president,
but “deciding against this, I could find no other position in public
life beside that of a newspaper publisher in which a man of enormous
wealth exercises what might be called real power in a democracy...
The history of the newspaper business obviously demanded that Kane be
what is generally referred to as a yellow journalist.” Welles
wrote that once he chose his subject, “it was impossible for me to
ignore American history...My picture could not begin the career of such
a man in 1890 and take it to 1940 without presenting the man with the
same problems which presented themselves to his equivalents in real
life.”
In the foreword to a memoir by
Marion Davies, Hearst's mistress, Welles notes that everything in
Citizen Kane was invented except for the telegram Kane orders to be
sent to his reporter in Cuba (“You provide the prose poems, I'll provide
the war”), which was based on the well-known wire Hearst sent to
illustrator Frederick Remington (“You make the pictures, I'll make the
war”) and Kane's “crazy art collection.” While acknowledging
parallels, Welles points out that Hearst was born rich and was the
“pampered son of an adoring mother,” whereas Kane was born poor and
reared by a bank. Welles states, “It was a real man who built an
opera house for the soprano of his choice, and much in the movie was
borrowed from that story, but the man was not Hearst.” Others have
speculated that Kane is not so much a portrayal of Hearst as a composite
of a number of powerful men of the time, including Samuel Insull, Joseph
Pulitzer, Charles A. Dana, Joseph Medill Patterson, James Gordon Bennett
II, Frank A. Munsey, Harold Fowler McCormick and Colonel Robert
McCormick. Indeed, on November 8, 1940, photographs of a number of
famous publishers including Hearst, Pulitzer, McCormick, Patterson, Lord
Northcliffe, Lord Beaverbrook, Bonfils and Sommes were ordered for the
film to be reproduced for the “News on the March” sequence.
Welles contended that Susan Alexander “bears no resemblance at all” to
Marion Davies, whom he calls “one of the most delightfully
accomplished comediennes in the whole history of the screen.”
Some modern sources claim that Hearst's pet
name for
Marion Davies' genitalia was “Rosebud” and that Hearst threatened to
expose details of the sexual lives of personages in Hollywood if the
film were released. According to HR, Hearst saw the film's
script in September 1940 and “shot it back without a word.” As
Kane's dying word “Rosebud” was in the script at that time, it is
unclear why, if the story about “Rosebud” was true, he took no action
until the film was completed. (In March 1941, in Welles's New York
production of Native Son, a child's sled bearing the name
“Rosebud” was used as a prop, according to HR.)
According to an March 8, 1941 memo, Schaefer
wanted a clearance title attached to the film. Two possible
clearance titles suggested on April 3, 1941 were: “This is not the
story of any man, be he living or dead. Kane, and all other
characters involved in this picture are wholly imaginary” and “
Citizen Kane is not the story of the life of any man. It is
the story of the forces that move in the lives of many great men, as
seen through the eyes of lesser men.” According to a modern
source, Welles objected and wrote his own clearance title, which was
added to the film and later deleted. It read, “Citizen Kane
is an examination of the personal character of a public man, a portrait
according to the testimony of the intimates of his life. These,
and Kane himself, are wholly fictitious.”
According to DV, the Hearst ban on
mentioning or advertising RKO product ended on January 30, 1941 for all
RKO films except Citizen Kane. Hearst's forces tried a
number of tactics to stop its release, including, according to DV,
stirring up the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars and other
patriotic groups; sending photographers to get “personal” pictures of
Welles while he was at Palm Springs; and persistently inquiring at the
draft board as to the reason Welles was not drafted. Welles, in a
later interview, stated that he was warned one evening by a policeman
not to return to his hotel room because an under-aged, undressed girl
and photographers had been sent there as a setup, a situation that could
have resulted in a jail sentence. In April 1941, after a radio
broadcast of His Honor, the Mayor, written and narrated by
Welles, the Hearst papers launched an attack on “The Free Company”
series, of which the broadcast was a part, and on Welles himself, whom
they labeled Communistic and un-American. Welles replied in a
statement to newspapers that the attack was unfounded and based solely
on Hearst's displeasure with Citizen Kane.
In February 1941, DV reported that a
rift had occurred in RKO's board regarding whether the film should be
released, and that Welles, who had 25% interest in the film, privately
threatened to take legal steps if the release was delayed. After
Radio City Music Hall declined to premiere the film, HR reported
a rumor that Henry Luce, publisher of Time , offered one million dollars
for the negative, intending to release it. Modern sources cite
rumors that Louis B. Mayer, worried about Hearst's threats against the
industry, tried to buy the negative from RKO in order to destroy it.
By March 1941, after a number of special screenings, HR reported
that “the guess of 98 percent of those who have seen the picture is that
it will never be released—can't be released other than under a threat of
suits that Mr. W. R. Hearst will level against any theatre showing the
film.” On March 11, Welles threatened to sue RKO for breach of
contract and to attempt to obtain a court order to guarantee the
picture's release if he did not receive proof within twenty-four hours
that RKO would give the film an early release. Welles himself
offered to buy the film, but RKO, after a preview to the trade press in
Hollywood and New York on April 9, scheduled the world premiere at the
Palace Theatre in New York on May 1. Subsequently, the film had its
Hollywood premiere at the El Capitan on May 8, 1941.
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Critics exuberantly praised the film. HR
called it “a great motion picture.” Bosley Crowther of NYT
wrote, “Citizen Kane is far and away the most surprising and
cinematically exciting motion picture to be seen here in many a moon.
As a matter of fact, it comes close to being the most sensational film
ever made in Hollywood.” FD stated, “In Citizen Kane,
the cinema assures anew that its romper days are over and that it has
attained man's estate.” They noted the “somewhat similar
experiment with 'narratage' 'way back in 1933,” a reference to
The Power and the Glory which, like Citizen Kane, told its
story in segments that jumped back and forth in time, and predicted
Citizen Kane would have a more definite and lasting influence than
that film had on the art and technique of cinema. John O'Hara,
writing in Newsweek, commented that Citizen Kane was “the
best picture he ever saw” and that Welles's performance as Kane made him
“the best actor in the history of acting.”
Although the film did well initially at the
box office, it did not make back its cost. The film was selected
as the best picture of 1941 by the New York critics and by Look
magazine, and was cited as one of the ten best by an FD poll of
exhibitors and the National Board of Review. Mankiewicz and Welles
won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, and the film was
nominated for Academy Awards in eight other categories: Best Picture;
Best Director; Best Actor (Welles); Art Direction (black and white);
Cinematography (black and white); Film Editing; Music; and Sound
Recording. Four of the actors in the film,
Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore,
Ruth Warrick, and Ray Collins, received contracts from RKO.
The film was re-released on May 25, 1956,
and was selected as one of the twelve best films of all time in
September 1958 by a Brussels poll of 117 film historians from 26
countries. Subsequently, Citizen Kane was chosen as the
best film in motion picture history in 1962, 1972 and 1982 by Sight &
Sound polls of international critics. In January 1989, Turner
Entertainment Co. announced it was beginning preliminary tests to
colorize the film, but after reviewing the contract between RKO, Welles
and Mercury Productions, Turner announced in February 1989 that they
would discontinue the tests and would not colorize the picture because
of Welles's “almost total creative control,” including the final cut,
that was written into the contract. Turner subsequently
re-released the film theatrically on May 1, 1991. In 2007,
Citizen Kane was ranked 1st on AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies - 10th
Anniversary Edition list of the greatest American films, remaining in
the first position it occupied on AFI's 1997 list.
Modern sources list the following additional
credits: Asst Art Director, Hilyard Brown; Sketch Artist, Charles Ohmann;
Sketches and Graphics, Al Abbott, Claude Gillingwater, Jr., Albert Pyke
and Maurice Zuberano; Matte Artist, Mario Larrinaga; Boom Operator,
Jimmy Thompson; Sound Effects Editor, T.K. Wood; Sound Engineering for
Sound Effects, Harry Essman; and Music Editor, Ralph Bekher.
Music includes: "Una voce poco fa"
from the opera Il barbiere di Siviglia, music by Gioacchino
Antonio Rossini, libretto by Cesare Sterbini; "Salammbo," music
and lyrics by Bernard Herrmann; "Charlie Kane," music based on "A
poco no" by Pepe Guizar, lyrics by Herman Ruby; and "In a Mizz,"
music and lyrics by Charles Barrett and Haven Johnson. |
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