It has been said that William Randolph Hearst wanted to buy the negative from RKO, presumably so he could burn it. Whether or not that is true, he did call Orson Welles a "Communist." And "Citizen Kane" was a flop at the box office. Not only wasn't it considered for Best Picture at the Academy Awards, every time it was nominated for an award, it was booed.
But is it the best motion picture ever made? Perhaps. Most movie critics consider 1939 to be the greatest year in the history of American cinema, but 1941-the year "Kane" was made-is a close second. It's a story told almost entirely in flashback, as a group of reporters interview people to try to discover what Kane meant by his dying last word: "Rosebud." Kane's assistant Mr. Bernstein (Everett Sloane) (he's never given a first name; it's just "Mr. Bernstein" or "Bernstein") thinks it might have been a girl. "There were a lot of them in the early days." Kane's friend and partner Jed Leland (Joseph Cotten) says he read about Kane's "dying words" in the Enquirer (Kane's newspaper). "Well, I never believed anything I saw in the Enquirer."
Charles Foster Kane became a multi-millionaire quite by accident. As a boy, he lived with his parents in "Mrs. Kane's Boarding House" in Colorado. A boarder who couldn't pay his bill left Mrs. Kane a deed to a worthless (or so he believed) gold mine. It turned out to be the Colorado lode, one of richest mines in the world. And now we have a scene which has always disturbed me. Young Charles is playing in the snow with his sled and building a snowman when Mr. Thatcher (George Coulouris), a prominent banker, comes to visit. He's going to take the very rich Charles away with him on a train trip. What's more, the scene makes it very clear that Charles is never going to see his parents again. WHY? Mary Kane, who is so depressed one can barely look at her, is played by Agnes Moorehead, making her screen debut at the age of 40. But again, why is it necessary to separate Charles from his parents just because he's rich? No wonder he attacked Thatcher with a sled.
Fast forward to Kane, now 21, and completely independent from the firm of "Thatcher and Company." In a letter to Thatcher, he tells him he's not interested in oil wells, gold mines, etc., but would like to buy a bankrupt newspaper because, "I think it would be fun to run a newspaper." When the very rich and powerful confront a reality they don't like, they often use that money and power to try and change it. When Kane is confronted by his wife and his political opponent Gettys (Ray Collins)-Kane is running for governor-about his affair with Susan Alexander and Gettys tells him he won't print the story if Kane withdraws from the race, Kane totally refuses ("Nobody's going to tell me what to do!"). The people love him (Jed Leland: "You talk about the people as if you own them."), and will elect him no matter what he's done. He was wrong.
To quote Leland once again, Kane "spent his whole life trying to prove something." After Emily Monroe Norton (Ruth Warrick), Kane's first wife, dies in a car accident, he marries Susan Alexander (Dorothy Comingore), and tries to turn her into an opera singer, a hopeless task. (He even builds her an opera house.) Finally, her singing teacher has had enough. "Some people can sing. Some can't. IMPOSSIBLE! IMPOSSIBLE!" Mr. Kane intervenes, and reminds Sigor Matiste (Fortunio Bonanova) that he runs a few newspapers and can easily destroy his reputation. Once again money and power defeat reality.
Now, I don't really think it's fair to say that Susan Alexander and Marion Davies, Hearst's mistress, are one and the same person. Susan was an inept singer, Marion a successful and talented actress for 20 years. She never married Hearst, nor did she ever leave him. She also claimed that she never saw "Citizen Kane," and had nothing negative to say about Mr. Welles.
Finally, if you want to understand how the mind of a really powerful man works, look at how Kane dealt with Leland when he was giving Susan's performance a bad review. Leland was too drunk to finish it, so Kane did it for him, writing a bad notice. Kane spent his whole life "trying to prove something."
Earlier, Mr. Bernstein told us that Lane and Leland have not spoken for years. Then Leland walks into the room where Kane is typing Susan's notice, and we have the following dialogue:
Kane: Hello Jedediah.
Jed: Hello, Charlie. I didn't know we were speaking.
Kane: Sure, we're speaking Jedediah. You're fired.
Unlike the baffled reporters, we know what "Rosebud" means as soon as Kane drops the snow globe. He's thinking about his youth in his parents' boarding house, a poor boy riding a sled and building snowmen. The only time in his life when he was really happy.
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Reviews with images
No 75th Anniversary Details.
Arrives as pictired. No 75 anniversary labels anywhere in the disk, cover or on the Blu Ray menu.The movie is from 1941. I think it's an amazing classic. Not the best ever made in my opinion but was a great movie. Wizard of Oz and Gone with the wind where made before this and in my Opinion those two are greatest movie ever made. It's all black and white but again a great movie. Very happy to have this in my video library and recommend this to any collector. Just don't expect any " 75th Anniversary edition " labeling.
Top reviews from other countries
raul
UNA DE LAS MÁS GRANDES PELICULAS DE LA HISTORIA DEL CINE EN 4K, ¿QUE MÁS SE PUEDE PEDIR?
Reviewed in Spain on February 4, 2024Elleppi
BEst edition around, for a film that, love it or not, made history and can tell you a lot about who we are and where we live.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 7, 2015
