A Filmmaker's Guide to 70 Things You Should Know About Citizen Kane (1941)

Citizen Kane (1941) is possibly one of the most well-known and critically beloved films in cinema history. Have you even studied film if you weren't made to watch this movie a billion times over? Anyways, the accounts of making this film were amazing in a recent book I read called "One Man Band" about Orson Welles. I personally think there are better films out there but I can see why this one is so very well respected. Most of it is due to that opening segment. It is absolutely brilliant. The death of Charles Kane at the beginning and then the start of the story coming back on itself isn't really a structure that is used until much later in cinematic history.

So, without further introduction for all you Orson Welles die-hard fans to those of you who only watched Citizen Kane because you were told to and all the way to the people on this site who will now go and watch the film for the first time. Here are all the things you should know about "Citizen Kane" (1941).

All the things you should know about Citizen Kane (1941):

1. Kane's son was supposed to survive to adulthood in the original script. Apparently he joins a radical group to overthrow the government

2. The film was inducted into the Library of Congress National Film Registry in 1989 for being culturally significant

3. The Chicago Premiere was on Orson Welles' 26th Birthday

4. It is the favourite film of the cartoonist for "Peanuts" - Charles Schulz

5. William Randolph Hearst was infuriated by the movie because apparently, it was about him

6. Rebecca (1940) was a huge influence on the film

7. At 1 hour, 17 minutes and 33 seconds, there is a close up of a typewriter keys being pressed. This same style of shot is used in All the President's Men which is filmed 35 years later

8. The film that Welles watched the most just before making Citizen Kane (1941) was Stagecoach (1939)

9. Cain and Abel are referenced in the film

10. Charles Kane was born in Colorado and the boy who plays the young Charles Kane died in Colorado

11. It is President Trump's favourite film

12. Judy Holliday wanted to play Susan Alexander

13. It's in Roger Ebert's Great Movies List

14. Xanadu is inspired by Mandalay in "Rebecca" (1940)

15. It's in the Vatican's 45 Greatest Movies

16. Is in the AFI's 100 Greatest Films

17. It's Orson Welles' directing debut

18. The snow-globe that is dropped and broken reappears in the flashbacks of the film

19. During a violent rage, Orson Welles injured his hand, gashing it on set

20. It is Orson Welles' only Oscar Nomination for Acting

21. Orson Welles became the first person to be nominated for the Oscars for Best Actor, Best Director and Best Screenplay all for the same film. He won the screenplay award

22. Most of the film is shot using night shots, the crew would work all through the night on many occasions

23. The favourite film of Charlton Heston

24. For the majority of the main cast, it is their feature film debuts

25. Mr. Bernstein's first name is never revealed

26. The fake newsreel noises are from the film Five Came Back (1939)

27. Orson Welles worked on this film for 18 hours a day on average

28. The screenwriter wrote the balance from his hospital bed

29. Charles Kane knows a number of magic tricks that amuse Susan Alexander. This is because Orson Welles was an amateur magician

30. Entertainment Weekly's 2nd Greatest Film of All Time

31. Westbrook Van Voorhis wanted $25K to narrate the News on the March sequence. But William Alland could imitate him and asked for less so Welles hired the latter instead.

32. Gregg Toland's equipment is one of the first pieces of film equipment to use a coated lens for shooting an extensive amount of the film

33. The Oscar Statuettes won by the movie were auctioned off for almost a million dollars and just over half a million dollars respectively in 2011 and 2012

34. The film is set in the years of 1871 to 1941

35. The film debut of Agnes Moorehead who was already 40 years' old

36. Victor Moore in Make Way for Tomorrow (1937) inspired the look and voice of the elderly Charles Kane

37. Ted Turner wanted to colourise the film but Orson Welles stated something along the lines of not letting Turner take his "crayons" to Citizen Kane (1941)

38. It was initially a box-office flop

39. The News on the March is narrated by William Alland who also plays Mr. Thompson

40. Orson Welles hated the "rosebud" twist

41. Orson Welles' personal copy of the script sold for $97K

42. Orson Welles would humiliate and degrade Dorothy Comingore, calling her names and treating her horribly in order to make her hate him and strengthen her performance. It worked.

43. Jerry Thompson's face is never seen

44. Orson Welles hated filming the scene at Ma Kane's boarding house the most

45. The interviewer who interviews an elderly Charles Kane in the newsreel is the cinematography Gregg Toland

46. The film was actually ready to be released in February 1941, but due to the controversy surrounding it, it wouldn't get released until the beginning of May of that year

47. Xanadu's sign is inspired by the sign above William Randolph Hearst's extravagant houses in San Simeon and St Michel in France.

48. Orson Welles would be in the makeup chair for almost 7 hours in order to do the elderly scenes with a start at 9am

49. The original title for the film was "American"

50. Rosebud was actually influenced by en ex-girlfriend's dog, according to Orson Welles - it would spend hours sniffing itself

51. The writer was contracted not to drink during the filming of the movie but was known as an alcoholic at the time

52. Orson Welles chipped his anklebone on set

53. The opening scene after the newsreel is played by all the male main characters from the rest of the film

54. Dorothy Comingore was pregnant at the time the film was being made and so, this made Welles stick to a strict schedule so Comingore could have the correct amount of time off to give birth

55. The scene with the showgirls was meant to be taken in a brothel but the production company ruled it out

56. There was a massive fight over the original idea of the film and who had it

57. Originally, Orson Welles was meant to make a film about Howard Hughes

58. Kane says "don't believe everything you hear on the radio..." which is a nod to Orson Welles' reading of "War of the Worlds" on the BBC Radio which put the world in somewhat moral panic

59. Citizen Kane premiered 5 days before Welles turned 26 - he made one of the greatest films in history at 25 years' old

60. Composer Bernard Herrmann would go on to compose for the films of Alfred Hitchcock

61. An essay written in the New Yorker about Citizen Kane entitled "Raising Kane" in 1971 was disputed by a film critic who disagreed with many of the points put forth by the author Pauline Kael. In fact, Kael's essay wasn't written by her at all - it was written by Orson Welles.

62. Orson Welles was constantly sick on set, not being in good shape for the filming of this piece.

63. The large birds across the beach were actually set pieces taken from a Sci-Fi film. They're not birds at all, they're pterodactyls

64. The audience watching Kane make his speeches is actually a still image

65. Gregg Toland pioneers the 'deep focus' method of cinematography in this film - this keeps every single object whether in foreground, centre or background in continuous focus. It is an amazing method which has been copied by most great films in one scene or another. It is used to create depth

66. The original nitrate film was destroyed in a fire in 1970

67. In the film, the opening features no credits with the stars' names since none of them were really famous at the time. It was something almost unheard of in that day. But today, it has become almost normal

68. The film was constantly booed at the Academy Awards

69. William Randolph Hearst accused Orson Welles of being a communist

70. One night when the movie was opening, Welles found himself alone in an elevator with William Randolph Hearst in San Francisco.