Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Citizen Kane on TCM


"$20,000 is alot of dough to pay for a statue with her head cut off..." so says the mover who is cleaning out Charles Foster Kane's mansion, Xanado. I can't pass by a chance to see Citizen Kane, although I have seen it probably....30 times? 50? Perhaps more. I really enjoy Dorothy Comingore playing Susan Alexander, she is really good, esp in the scenes where she is yelling at Kane. "CHAR - ley, you listen' ta me? CHAR-ley!" in that accent. Dorothy was very beautiful, very talented, classically trained singer. She had to practice singing off key, its called "acting" i guess. She was destroyed in the 50's with the red-baiting hearings. Her last film was a small role in 1953. She married her 3rd husband who had nothing to do with Hollywood, the web says she died of heart disease after battling alcoholism (or sobriety, it depends on how you look at it). I love this movie. Kane and Susan in that huge room, with the roaring fire, standing on opposite ends of the room, showing their emotional separation. Who wrote the screenplay? Herman Mankiewicz or Orson Welles? Herman had more experience, but clearly Kane is his masterpiece, which leads me to think Welles had much to contribute to the screenplay.

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