History Trivia / CitizenKane

* DuelingMovies: From then til now, if ''Citizen Kane'' isn't #1 on a film list, it's Creator/JeanRenoir's ''Film/TheRulesOfTheGame''.

* ActorAllusion: Kane knows plenty of magic tricks that amuse Susan. Welles himself was an amateur magician.
* AFIS100Years100Movies: #1
* AFIS100Years100MovieQuotes: #17
* AFIS100Years100Movies10THAnniversaryEdition: #1
* 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, despite performing better in light comedy. Ironically, Welles and Mankiewicz claimed that they made Susan so talentless to ensure she ''wasn't'' confused with Marion Davies. Instead, the opposite happened.

** 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."

* StarMakingRole: ''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.

** 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]].

!!Other trivia
* The American Film Institute voted this to be the greatest movie of the century for its [[AFIS100YearsSeries 100 Years series]]. "Rosebud" came in at [[AFIS100Years100MovieQuotes #17 for greatest quotes]]

** 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.

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

* DangerouslyGenreSavvy: William Randolph Hearst, on whom the title character is based, was not happy when he heard about the film. Instead of railing against it and ordering his newspapers to trash it, he instead ordered them to make no mention of it whatsoever. This is credited for helping it to perform far below expectations in theaters.

* CreatorKiller: Had it not been for the controversy with William Randolph Hearst, Welles might have had a smoother Hollywood career. However, Welles himself stated that it was the disaster of ''Film/TheMagnificentAmbersons'' that really ruined his Hollywood career.

* ActorAllusion:
** Kane knows plenty of magic tricks that amuse Susan. Welles himself was an amateur magician.
** Most people note that Kane's life mirrored ''Welles'', not Hearst. In reality, Welles ended up like Kane after the film, too.

* Hearst's decedents officially forgave Wells and allow the film to be screened in the visitor's center to Hearst Castle (the real world analogue of Xanadu).

* DuelingMovies: From then til now, if ''Citizen Kane'' isn't #1 on a film list, it's Creator/JeanRenoit's ''Film/TheRulesOfTheGame''.

* ActorAllusion: Kane knows plenty of magic tricks that amuse Susan. Welles himself was an amateur magician.

* 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.
** The great leading man 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.

* AcclaimedFlop: Yes, the "Greatest Film of All Time" was a spectacular box office bomb for its time, though eventually it made a profit in repertory screenings and Welles lived off its royalties even when he was down and out in Europe. See CreatorKiller below for more.

* 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 ensure she ''wasn't'' confused with Marion Davies. Instead, the opposite happened.

** Likewise, everyone feel that this film was a satire on Hearst and Hearst alone. In truth, the film was intended to be a general satire and tragedy of the AmericanDream and the resemblances to Hearst came about largely because screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz was a regular at Hearst's parties and knew him well. Both he and Welles included details from several American tycoons like Samuel Insull and Howard Hughes in addition to Hearst. Likewise, Welles himself never intended the film to be a TakeThat on Hearst, indeed the drafts of the screenplay credited to him show that it was Welles who made Kane more sympathetic and that the original screenplay was a good deal more anti-Hearst.

* CopiouslyCreditedCreator: Co-written, directed, and starring Welles.

** There's also Kael's claim that Herman Mankiewicz wrote the entire script himself, and that Welles unfairly took credit. Despite [[http://www.popoptiq.com/kael-vs-kane-pauline-kael-orson-welles-authorship-citizen-kane/ being thoroughly debunked]] by Robert Carrington, Peter Bogdanovich and others, this argument's still repeated by credulous film buffs.

** There's also Kael's claim that Herman Mankiewicz wrote the entire script himself, and that Welles unfairly took sole credit. Despite [[http://www.popoptiq.com/kael-vs-kane-pauline-kael-orson-welles-authorship-citizen-kane/ being thoroughly debunked]], this argument's still repeated by credulous film buffs.

** Likewise, everyone feel that this film was a satire on Hearst and Hearst alone. In truth, the film was intended to be a general satire and tragedy of the AmericanDream and the resemblances to Hearst came about largely because screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz was a regular at Hearst's parties and knew him well. Both he and Welles included details from several American tycoons like Samuel Insull and Howard Hughes in addition to Hearst. Likewise, Welles himself never intended the film to be a TakeThat on Hearst, indeed the drafts of the screenplay credited to him show that it was Welles who made Kane more sympathetic and that the original screenplay was a good deal more anti-Hearst.

* AcclaimedFlop: Yes, the "Greatest Film of All Time" was a spectacular box office bomb. See CreatorKiller below for more.

* MagnumOpusDissonance: Orson Welles saw ''Film/ChimesAtMidnight'' as his masterpiece.

** Everyone from [[http://www.paulrossen.com/paulinekael/raisingkane.html Pauline Kael]] to [[http://www.paulrossen.com/paulinekael/raisingkane.html Cracked]] claims that no one actually heard Kane's last words, therefore the whole "Rosebud" mystery is a plot hole. In reality, Raymond the Butler tells the journalist that he was present during Kane's death, so presumably he heard "Rosebud" himself.

** Everyone from [[http://www.paulrossen.com/paulinekael/raisingkane.html Pauline Kael]] to [[http://www.paulrossen.com/paulinekael/raisingkane.html Cracked]] claim that no one actually heard Kane's last words, therefore the whole "Rosebud" mystery is a plot hole. In reality, Raymond the Butler tells the journalist that he was present during Kane's death, so presumably he heard "Rosebud" himself.