Word: orson
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...some grotesque fable, it appeared last week that Hollywood was about to turn upon and destroy its greatest creation. That creation was Citizen Kane, the film which Orson Welles and his Mercury Players had spent more than a year talking and thinking about and 70 days shooting, with $750,000 of Radio-Keith-Orpheum's money...
...Story begins with the death of Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles), at one time the world's third richest man, overlord of mines and factories and steamship lines, boss of newspapers, news services and radio chains, possessor of a vast castle in Florida, a staggering agglomeration of art, two wives, millions of enemies. The MARCH OF TIME is running off rushes of its Kane biography in its projection room. But when they are shown, the editor does not think the facts reveal the man. "It might be any rich publisher-Pulitzer, Hearst or John Doe," he complains...
...Orson Welles treats the audience like a jury, calling up the witnesses, letting them offer the evidence, injecting no opinions of his own. He merely sees that their stories are told with absorbing clarity. Unforgettable are such scenes as the spanning of Kane's first marriage in a single conversation, the silly immensity of the castle halls which echo the flat whines of Susan...
...youth and his talent. When he grew a beard for his first film, a sporty pressagent sent him a bearded ham for Christmas; while he was dining out one evening, a playful actor cut off his tie with a table knife; columnists dubbed him with nicknames like "Little Orson Annie." At announcements that his first two productions had been called off, the town nodded knowingly. He was just a big bag of publicity...
...whatever Orson Welles did do, Hollywood was pretty sure it would break all the rules. Hollywood was right...