Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film directed by, produced by, and starring Orson Welles. Welles and Herman J. Mankiewicz wrote the screenplay. The picture was Welles' first feature film. Citizen Kane is frequently cited as the greatest film ever made. For 50 consecutive years, it stood at number 1 in the British Film Institute's Sight & Sound decennial poll of critics, and it topped the American Film Institute's 100 Years ... 100 Movies list in 1998, as well as its 2007 update. The film was nominated for Academy Awards in nine categories and it won for Best Writing by Mankiewicz and Welles. Citizen Kane is praised for Gregg Toland's cinematography, Robert Wise's editing, Bernard Herrmann's music, and its narrative structure, all of which have been considered innovative and precedent-setting.
Peter Bogdanovich was an American director, writer, actor, producer, critic, and film historian. He started his career as a film critic for Film Culture and Esquire before becoming a prominent filmmaker as part of the New Hollywood movement. He received accolades including a BAFTA Award and Grammy Award, as well as nominations for two Academy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards.
Marion Davies was an American actress, producer, screenwriter, and philanthropist. Educated in a religious convent, Davies fled the school to pursue a career as a chorus girl. As a teenager, she appeared in several Broadway musicals and one film, Runaway Romany (1917). She soon became a featured performer in the Ziegfeld Follies.
Herman Jacob Mankiewicz was an American screenwriter who, with Orson Welles, wrote the screenplay for Citizen Kane (1941). Both Mankiewicz and Welles would go on to receive the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for the film. He was previously a Berlin correspondent for Women’s Wear Daily, assistant theater editor at The New York Times, and the first regular drama critic at The New Yorker. Alexander Woollcott said that Mankiewicz was the "funniest man in New York".
Louella Rose Oettinger, known professionally as Louella Parsons, was an American gossip columnist and a screenwriter. At her peak, her columns were read by 20 million people in 700 newspapers worldwide.
The Mercury Theatre was an independent repertory theatre company founded in New York City in 1937 by Orson Welles and producer John Houseman. The company produced theatrical presentations, radio programs and motion pictures. The Mercury also released promptbooks and phonographic recordings of four Shakespeare works for use in schools.
Charles Davies Lederer was an American screenwriter and film director. He was born into a theatrical family in New York, and after his parents divorced, was raised in California by his aunt, Marion Davies, actress and mistress to newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst. A child prodigy, he entered the University of California, Berkeley at age 13, but dropped out after a few years to work as a journalist with Hearst's newspapers.
Mary Louise Comingore, known professionally as Dorothy Comingore, was an American film actress. She starred as Susan Alexander Kane in Citizen Kane (1941), the critically acclaimed debut film of Orson Welles. In earlier films she was credited as Linda Winters, and she had appeared on the stage as Kay Winters. Her career ended when she was caught up in the Hollywood blacklist. She declined to answer questions when she was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952.
The Battle Over Citizen Kane is a 1996 American documentary film directed and produced by Thomas Lennon and Michael Epstein, from a screenplay by Lennon and Richard Ben Cramer, who also narrates. It chronicles the clash between Orson Welles and William Randolph Hearst over the production and release of Welles's 1941 film Citizen Kane, which has been considered the greatest film ever made.
Orson Welles (1915–1985) was an American director, actor, writer, and producer who is best remembered for his innovative work in radio, theatre and film. He is widely considered one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time.
This is Orson Welles is a 1992 book by Orson Welles and Peter Bogdanovich that comprises conversations between the two filmmakers recorded over several years, beginning in 1969. The wide-ranging volume encompasses Welles's life and his own stage, radio, and film work as well as his insights on the work of others. The book was edited after Welles's death, at the request of Welles's longtime companion and professional collaborator, Oja Kodar. Jonathan Rosenbaum drew from several incomplete drafts of the manuscript and many reel-to-reel tapes, most of which had already been transcribed. Much of the dialogue, however, had been rewritten by Welles, often in several drafts.
Thomas Harper Ince was an American silent era filmmaker and media proprietor. Ince was known as the "Father of the Western" and was responsible for making over 800 films.
USS Oneida (SP-432) was the proposed name and designation of an American steam yacht considered for use as a section patrol craft during World War I. In July 1917 the seagoing yacht was ordered taken by the U.S. Navy for service in international waters, but the yacht was never acquired and instead remained in private hands.
This is a bibliography of books by or about the director and actor Orson Welles.
Steven Peros is an American playwright, director and screenwriter of film and television. He is the author of both the stage play and screenplay for The Cat's Meow, which was made into the 2002 Lionsgate film directed by Peter Bogdanovich and starring Kirsten Dunst, Eddie Izzard, Edward Herrmann, Cary Elwes, Jennifer Tilly, and Joanna Lumley.
The Citizen Kane trailer is a four-minute, self-contained, "making of" promotional short film by Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre, released in 1940 to promote the film Citizen Kane. Unlike other standard theatrical trailers of the era, it did not feature any footage of the actual film itself, but was a wholly original pseudo-documentary piece. It is considered by numerous film scholars such as Simon Callow, Joseph McBride and Jonathan Rosenbaum to be a standalone short film, rather than a conventional "trailer", and to represent an important stage in developing Welles's directorial style.
"Raising Kane" is a 1971 book-length essay by American film critic Pauline Kael, in which she revived controversy over the authorship of the screenplay for the 1941 film Citizen Kane. Kael celebrated screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz, first-credited co-author of the screenplay, and questioned the contributions of Orson Welles, who co-wrote, produced and directed the film, and performed the lead role. The 50,000-word essay was written for The Citizen Kane Book (1971), as an extended introduction to the shooting script by Mankiewicz and Welles. It first appeared in February 1971 in two consecutive issues of The New Yorker magazine. In the ensuing controversy, Welles was defended by colleagues, critics, biographers and scholars, but his reputation was damaged by its charges. The essay and Kael's assertions were later questioned after Welles's contributions to the screenplay were documented.
The sources for Citizen Kane, the 1941 American motion picture that marked the feature film debut of Orson Welles, have been the subject of speculation and controversy since the project's inception. With a story spanning 60 years, the quasi-biographical film examines the life and legacy of Charles Foster Kane, played by Welles, a fictional character based in part upon the American newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst and Chicago tycoons Samuel Insull and Harold McCormick. A rich incorporation of the experiences and knowledge of its authors, the film earned an Academy Award for Best Writing for Herman J. Mankiewicz and Welles.
The authorship of the screenplay for Citizen Kane, the 1941 American motion picture that marked the feature film debut of Orson Welles, has been one of the film's long-standing controversies. With a story spanning 60 years, the quasi-biographical film examines the life and legacy of Charles Foster Kane, played by Welles, a fictional character based in part upon the American newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst and Chicago tycoons Samuel Insull and Harold McCormick. A rich incorporation of the experiences and knowledge of its authors, the film earned an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Herman J. Mankiewicz and Welles.
Mank is a 2020 American biographical drama film about screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz and his development of the screenplay for the 1941 film Citizen Kane. It was directed by David Fincher based on a screenplay written by his late father Jack Fincher and was produced by Ceán Chaffin, Douglas Urbanski, and Eric Roth. It stars Gary Oldman in the title role, alongside Amanda Seyfried, Lily Collins, Arliss Howard, Tom Pelphrey, Sam Troughton, Ferdinand Kingsley, Tuppence Middleton, Tom Burke, Joseph Cross, Jamie McShane, Toby Leonard Moore, Monika Gossman, and Charles Dance.
