Citizen Kane Page #3

Synopsis: When a reporter is assigned to decipher newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane's (Orson Welles) dying words, his investigation gradually reveals the fascinating portrait of a complex man who rose from obscurity to staggering heights. Though Kane's friend and colleague Jedediah Leland (Joseph Cotten), and his mistress, Susan Alexander (Dorothy Comingore), shed fragments of light on Kane's life, the reporter fears he may never penetrate the mystery of the elusive man's final word, "Rosebud."
Genre: Drama, Mystery
Director(s): Orson Welles
Production: RKO Radio Pictures
  Won 1 Oscar. Another 9 wins & 13 nominations.
 
IMDB:
8.4
Metacritic:
100
Rotten Tomatoes:
100%
PG
Year:
1941
119 min
853,054 Views


NOTE:
Here follows a typical news digest short, one of the

regular monthly or bi-monthly features, based on public events

or personalities. These are distinguished from ordinary

newsreels and short subjects in that they have a fully developed

editorial or storyline. Some of the more obvious

characteristics of the "March of Time," for example, as well

as other documentary shorts, will be combined to give an

authentic impression of this now familiar type of short subject.

As is the accepted procedure in these short subjects, a narrator

is used as well as explanatory titles.

FADE OUT:

NEWS DIGEST NARRATOR

Legendary was the Xanadu where

Kubla Kahn decreed his stately

pleasure dome -

(with quotes in his

voice)

"Where twice five miles of fertile

ground, with walls and towers were

girdled 'round."

(DROPPING THE QUOTES)

Today, almost as legendary is

Florida's XANADU - world's largest

private pleasure ground. Here, on

the deserts of the Gulf Coast, a

private mountain was commissioned,

successfully built for its landlord.

Here in a private valley, as in

the Coleridge poem, "blossoms many

an incense-bearing tree." Verily,

"a miracle of rare device."

U.S.A.

CHARLES FOSTER KANE

Opening shot of great desolate expanse of Florida coastline

(1940 - DAY)

DISSOLVE:

Series of shots showing various aspects of Xanadu, all as they

might be photographed by an ordinary newsreel cameraman - nicely

photographed, but not atmospheric to the extreme extent of the

Prologue (1940).

NARRATOR:

(dropping the quotes)

Here, for Xanadu's landlord, will

be held 1940's biggest, strangest

funeral; here this week is laid to

rest a potent figure of our Century -

America's Kubla Kahn - Charles

Foster Kane. In journalism's

history, other names are honored

more than Charles Foster Kane's,

more justly revered. Among

publishers, second only to James

Gordon Bennet the First: his

dashing, expatriate son; England's

Northcliffe and Beaverbrook;

Chicago's Patterson and McCormick;

Rate this script:2.5 / 6 votes

Herman J. Mankiewicz

Herman Jacob Mankiewicz was an American screenwriter, who, with Orson Welles, wrote the screenplay for Citizen Kane. Earlier, he was the Berlin correspondent for the Chicago Tribune and the drama critic for The New York Times and The New Yorker. more…

All Herman J. Mankiewicz scripts | Herman J. Mankiewicz Scripts

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Submitted by acronimous on March 22, 2016

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