Where to watch Citizen Kane (1941)

Trivia & production notes

• George J. Schaefer, RKO's studio chief, signed Welles to an unprecedented contract after being impressed by his notorious 1938 War of the Worlds radio broadcast.
• Welles's contract with RKO granted him complete artistic control, including final cut rights—an unheard-of privilege that placed creative authority over financial investment and deeply angered the film industry.
• Welles initially planned to film Heart of Darkness using first-person camera work, an experimental technique for the time, but abandoned the project because he couldn't trim $50,000 from its budget.
• Eight of Citizen Kane's principal actors—including Joseph Cotten, Agnes Moorehead, and Everett Sloane—made their feature film debuts in the movie.
• Charlie Chaplin discovered Dorothy Comingore performing in supporting roles and recommended her to Welles for the role of Susan Alexander Kane.
• William Alland was cast to imitate the March of Time narrator Westbrook Van Voorhis after demonstrating he could do the impression, saving Welles the $25,000 Van Voorhis had demanded for the role.
• Welles learned filmmaking by studying John Ford's Stagecoach intensively, watching it 40 times and discussing specific techniques with studio department heads each night.
• Gregg Toland, described by Welles as the top cameraman of the era, served as cinematographer on Citizen Kane.
• Welles was entirely self-taught as a director, having studied film techniques from books and classic films in the projection room before ever setting foot on a movie set.
• Agnes Moorehead recalled that Welles pioneered intensive rehearsals before filming scenes—a practice Hollywood studios had largely ignored—to get the best performances from his actors.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Citizen Kane, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Rewritten for StreamShack; errors are ours — tell us about them.