History Trivia / CitizenKane

* CommonKnowledge: People assume Marion Davies had a bad career, as her expy in the film shows. In fact, Marion Davies was widely considered [[Film/ShowPeople a talented actress and comedienne]], independent of all the publicity Hearst arranged for her. Hearst did push Davies towards melodramatic leading-lady roles. Davies - along with many others - recognized that her real gift was for light comedy.
** Ironically, Welles and Mankiewicz claimed that they made Susan so talentless to assure she ''wasn't'' confused with Marion Davies. Instead, the opposite happened.

* CreatorBacklash: Welles wasn't that big on the film. He preferred some of his later work, like his adaptation of Kafka's ''The Trial''. In a 1960 interview, he said, "I'm ashamed of Rosebud. I think it's a rather tawdry device. It's the thing I like least in ''Kane''. It's kind of a dollar-book Freudian gag, you know. It doesn't stand up very well."
** Mild. Welles stated that his only regret was dragging Marion Davies through the mud; Davies was actually a great comedic actress and a warm person.
* CreatorKiller: The "Greatest Movie of All Time" was also the movie that killed Welles standing as a director in Hollywood. Prior to ''Citizen Kane'', Welles himself was very much a victim of the HollywoodHypeMachine and when the movie bombed at the box office, no studio would allow Welles complete creative control over any more of his films. Subsequent flops would serve as the death nail to his career.

* CommonKnowledge: People assume Marion Davies had a bad career, as her expy in the film shows. In fact, Marion Davies was widely considered [[ShowPeople a talented actress and comedienne]], independent of all the publicity Hearst arranged for her. Hearst did push Davies towards melodramatic leading-lady roles. Davies - along with many others - recognized that her real gift was for light comedy.

* WordOfDante: Sort of. People assume Marion Davies had a bad career, as her expy in the film shows. In fact, Marion Davies was widely considered [[ShowPeople a talented actress and comedienne]], independent of all the publicity Hearst arranged for her. Hearst did push Davies towards melodramatic leading-lady roles. Davies - along with many others - recognized that her real gift was for light comedy.

* AFIS100YearsSeries
** AFIS100Years100Movies: #1
** AFIS100Years100MovieQuotes: #17, "Rosebud"
** AFIS100Years100Movies10THAnniversaryEdition: #1

* AFI Accolades:

** "100 Years. . .100 Movies"- #1
** "100 Years. . .100 Movie Quotes" - #17, "Rosebud"
** "100 Years. . .100 Movies (10th Anniversary) - #1

* EnforcedMethodActing: And ''how''.
** Poor Dorothy Comingore endured physical and mental abuse from Orson Welles and ended up a near wreck by the end.
** To simulate being drunk, Joseph Cotten remained awake for 24 straight hours. You can see Welles break character and grin when Cotten flubs his line and says "dramatic crimiticism." Of course, it was a ThrowItIn moment.
** Welles himself let himself go during the famous room trashing sequence, even hurting himself badly bloodying his hands while doing it. After filming the scene, Welles breathed, "I felt it. I ''felt'' it."

* MagnumOpusDissonance: Orson Welles saw ''Chimes At Midnight'' as his masterpiece.

** The great character actor Alan Ladd appears briefly as an extra near the beginning of the film in the projection room and again smoking a pipe near the end.

* HeyItsThatGuy: Agnes Moorehead, who appears as Kane's mother, became a longtime character actress who later starred as Endora on ''Series/{{Bewitched}}''. Ruth Warrick, Kane's first wife, later became famous to soap opera audiences as Phoebe Tyler on ''AllMyChildren'', a role she played for thirty-five years.

* StarMakingRole: Joseph Cotten, who went on to a long and very successful career as a leading man in Hollywood. In fact ''Kane'' was a Star Making Role to some extent for most of the cast, since the bulk of them were members of Welles' Mercury Theater troupe and they were all making their film debuts together.
** Then there was BernardHerrmann, who had been a music composer for the Mercury Theater, went to Hollywood along with Welles and the actors, composed the music to ''Citizen Kane'' as his very first film score, and went on to become one of [[PsychoStrings the most successful]] [[Film/{{Vertigo}} film composers]] [[TaxiDriver in movie history]].

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: Originally, the movie was going to be based on the life of Howard Hughes with Cotten in the lead. Eventually, Welles realized [[RealityIsUnrealistic nobody would believe most of the stuff Hughes had done]], so he decided to make Kane a media baron instead.
** Also, Welles was originally going to make an adaptation of Joseph Conrad's ''Literature/HeartOfDarkness'' but the executives didn't believe they could possibly stretch a budget far enough to cover it, so he made [[TropesAreNotBad ''Kane'']] instead.
* WordOfDante: Sort of. People assume Marion Davies had a bad career, as her expy in the film shows. In fact, Marion Davies was widely considered [[ShowPeople a talented actress and comedienne]], independent of all the publicity Hearst arranged for her.
** Hearst did push Davies towards melodramatic leading-lady roles. Davies - along with many others - recognized that her real gift was for light comedy.

** Welles himself is an interesting aversion. He was a star since age 16, and became famous for his theatre and (cough) [[TheWarOfTheWorlds radio]], and had in fact made three films prior to this (a bizarre short in 1934, a 40-minute film that was intended to be part of a hybrid stage play/movie performance in 1938, and he narrated a version of Swiss Family Robinson a year before Kane came out), but the movie almost destroyed his career.

** Then there was BernardHerrmann, who had been a music composer for the Mercury Theater, went to Hollywood along with Welles and the actors, composed the music to ''Citizen Kane'' as his very first film score, and went on to become one of [[PsychoStrings the most successful]] [[{{Vertigo}} film composers]] [[TaxiDriver in movie history]].

** Also, Welles was originally going to make an adaptation of Joseph Conrad's ''HeartOfDarkness'' but the executives didn't believe they could possibly stretch a budget far enough to cover it, so he made [[TropesAreNotBad ''Kane'']] instead.

* HeyItsThatGuy: Agnes Moorehead, who appears as Kane's mother, became a longtime character actress who later starred as Endora on ''{{Bewitched}}''. Ruth Warrick, Kane's first wife, later became famous to soap opera audiences as Phoebe Tyler on ''AllMyChildren'', a role she played for thirty-five years.