Citizen Kane (1941) on Netflix
Newspaper tycoon Charles Foster Kane dies at Xanadu, his Florida estate, uttering the word Rosebud. A newsreel producer sends reporter Jerry Thompson to learn what it means.
- Netflix3.8/5
- IMDb8.2/10496,801 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes99%
Trailer
Plot summary
Charles Foster Kane, a newspaper magnate, dies in his mansion at Xanadu, his Florida estate, and his final word is Rosebud. A newsreel producer, unsatisfied with an obituary that cannot explain the word, assigns reporter Jerry Thompson to find out what it means. Thompson begins with Kane's second wife, Susan Alexander Kane, who will not speak to him, and then reads the unpublished memoir of banker Walter Parks Thatcher. Thatcher had become the boy's guardian after gold was found on a deed belonging to Kane's mother, Mary Kane, and took him from his Colorado home. The memoir follows the young Kane as he comes into his fortune, buys the struggling New York Inquirer, and turns it against Thatcher's business interests. Thompson also hears from Kane's business manager, Bernstein.
Cast
Show all 20 cast
- Buddy Swanas Young Charles Foster Kane
- Don Ackermanas Man at Party in Everglades (uncredited)
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Citizen Kane (1941)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Orson Welles's RKO contract gave him complete artistic control, including final cut, and barred executives from seeing footage until he chose to show it, unprecedented for a studio because it placed artistic considerations over financial investment.
- Welles began filming Citizen Kane on June 29, 1940, a Saturday morning, and deceived RKO into believing he was only shooting camera tests so he could get started before executives knew about it.
- While shooting the scene where Kane shouts at Gettys on the stairs, Welles fell ten feet and X-rays revealed two bone chips in his ankle, forcing him to direct from a wheelchair for two weeks.
- On the ninth take of the final furnace scene, the Culver City Fire Department arrived in full gear because the flue caught fire; Paul Stewart recalled that Welles was delighted with the commotion.
- Welles cast Dorothy Comingore as Susan Alexander Kane after Charlie Chaplin, who had discovered her, recommended her; Welles met her at a Los Angeles party and cast her immediately.
- When Westbrook Van Voorhis asked $25,000 to narrate the News on the March sequence, William Alland demonstrated his imitation of Van Voorhis, and Welles cast him instead.
- Welles learned filmmaking by watching John Ford's Stagecoach about 40 times, running it after dinner each night for a month and asking technicians how and why shots were done.
- Make-up artist Maurice Seiderman gave Kane's face the look of skin pores. He did this by stippling the surface using a negative cast taken from an orange peel.
