Orson Welles at the premiere of Citizen Kane
71 years ago, May 1, 1941, Citizen Kane premieres at the RKO Palace on Broadway in New York City.
The film starring and directed by Orson Welles, age 25, (his first feature film) is met with heaps of praise by film critics. The New York Times wrote that “it came close to being the most sensational film ever made’’; while Newseek’s John O’Hara called Kane “the finest film’’ he’d ever seen.
Kane was nominated for 9 Academy Awards, but only came away with one statue; for Best Screenplay.
A Footnote: Since it was no secret that Charles Foster Kane was loosely based on William Randolph Hearst, the powerful business magnate and newspaper publisher refused to allow RKO Pictures to advertise in his newspapers. Hearst, in fact, went to great lengths to suppress the film from being released and labeled Welles a “Communist.’’ Welles himself found himself under the radar of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. Radio City Music Hall was even afraid to show the film, while RKO struggled mightily to find theaters to show it.
Kane ended up losing more than $150,000; while Welles career suffered immeasurably by refusing to cave into pressures from Hearst; film studios were reluctant to hire this gifted wunderkind for future films, not even to direct.
In 1998 and 2007, Citizen Kane was ranked No.1 on the list of the American Film Institute's 100 greatest films of all time.
Bill Lucey
WPLucey@gmail.com
May 1, 2012
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