{{Short description|Screenplay}} {{DISPLAYTITLE:Screenplay for ''Citizen Kane''}} [[File:Citizen-Kane-Welles-Podium.jpg|thumb|right|[[Orson Welles]] in ''[[Citizen Kane]]'']] The authorship of the [[screenplay]] for ''[[Citizen Kane]]'', the 1941 American motion picture that marked the [[List of directorial debuts|feature film debut]] of [[Orson Welles]], has been one of the film's long-standing controversies. With a story spanning 60 years, the [[film à clef|quasi-biographical film]] examines the life and legacy of [[Charles Foster Kane]], played by Welles, a fictional character based in part upon the American newspaper magnate [[William Randolph Hearst]] and Chicago tycoons [[Samuel Insull]] and [[Harold Fowler McCormick|Harold McCormick]]. A rich incorporation of the experiences and knowledge of its authors, the film earned an [[Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay]] for [[Herman J. Mankiewicz]] and Welles.
==Mankiewicz as co-writer== [[File:Herman-Mankiewicz.jpg|thumb|upright|right|[[Herman J. Mankiewicz]] co-wrote the script in early 1940. He and Welles separately re-wrote and revised each other's work until Welles was satisfied with the finished product.]] {{blockquote|More works of conjecture … have been written on the creation of the screenplay for ''Citizen Kane'' than Orson and Herman were ever able to cram between those blue covers.|[[Joseph Cotten]]<ref>{{cite book |last=Cotten |first=Joseph |author-link=Joseph Cotten |title=Vanity Will Get You Somewhere |publisher=[[Mercury House (publishers)|Mercury House]] |location=San Francisco, CA |date=1987 |isbn=978-0-916-51517-1 }}</ref>{{Rp|84}}}} Screenwriter [[Herman J. Mankiewicz]] was a notorious personality in Hollywood.<ref name=Lebo>{{cite book |last=Lebo |first=Harlan |title=Citizen Kane: The Fiftieth Anniversary Album |publisher=[[Doubleday (publisher)|Doubleday]] |location=New York |date=1990 |isbn=978-0-385-41473-9}}</ref>{{Rp|12|date=May 2009}} "His behavior, public and private, was a scandal," wrote [[John Houseman]]. "A neurotic drinker and a compulsive gambler, he was also one of the most intelligent, informed, witty, humane and charming men I have ever known."<ref name="Houseman RT">{{cite book |last=Houseman |first=John |author-link=John Houseman |title=Run-Through: A Memoir |url=https://archive.org/details/runthroughmemoir00hous |url-access=registration |publisher=[[Simon & Schuster]] |location=New York |date=1972 |isbn=0-671-21034-3}}</ref>{{Rp|447|date=January 2013}} [[Orson Welles]] told [[Peter Bogdanovich]] that "Nobody was ''more'' miserable, ''more'' bitter, and ''funnier'' than Mank ... a perfect monument of self-destruction. But, you know, when the bitterness wasn't focused straight at you, he was the best company in the world."<ref name="Welles TIOW">{{cite book |last1=Welles |first1=Orson |author-link1=Orson Welles |last2=Bogdanovich |first2=Peter |author-link2=Peter Bogdanovich |last3=Rosenbaum |first3=Jonathan |author-link3=Jonathan Rosenbaum |title=[[This is Orson Welles]] |publisher=[[HarperCollins]] Publishers |location=New York |date=1992 |isbn=0-06-016616-9}}</ref>{{Rp|52–53|date=April 2012}}
Welles admired Mankiewicz, and had met him in New York in 1938<ref name="Brady">{{cite book |last=Brady |first=Frank |author-link=Frank Brady (writer) |title=Citizen Welles: A Biography of Orson Welles |publisher=[[Charles Scribner's Sons]] |location=New York |date=1989 |isbn=0-385-26759-2 |url=https://archive.org/details/citizenwellesbio00brad }}</ref>{{Rp|234}} at the time of the [[Mercury Theatre]]'s Broadway successes. In September 1939<ref name="Meryman"/>{{Rp|244}} Welles visited Mankiewicz while he was hospitalized in Los Angeles after a car accident, and offered him a job writing scripts for the Mercury Theatre's show on CBS radio, ''[[The Campbell Playhouse (radio series)|The Campbell Playhouse]]''. "I felt it would be useless," Welles said later, "because of Mank's general uselessness many times in the studios. But I thought, 'We'll see what he comes up with.'" Mankiewicz proved very useful, particularly working with Houseman as editor,<ref name="Meryman"/>{{Rp|240–242}} and wrote five scripts for ''Campbell Playhouse'' shows broadcast between November 12, 1939, and March 17, 1940.{{efn|Only four of the five scripts reached the air: "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd", "Dodsworth", "Vanity Fair" and "Huckleberry Finn".<ref name=Meryman/>{{Rp|242}}}}<ref name="Whaley">[http://www.lybrary.com/barton-whaley-m-191.html Whaley, Barton] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160407122754/http://www.lybrary.com/barton-whaley-m-191.html |date=2016-04-07 }}, ''Orson Welles: The Man Who Was Magic''. Lybrary.com, 2005, {{ASIN|B005HEHQ7E}}</ref>{{Rp|98}} Houseman and Welles were partners in the Mercury Theatre,<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|55}} but when Mercury productions moved from New York to California the partnership ended and Houseman became an employee, working primarily as supervising editor on the radio shows.<ref name="Tarbox">Tarbox, Todd, ''Orson Welles and Roger Hill: A Friendship in Three Acts''. Albany, Georgia: BearManor Media, 2013, {{ISBN|1-59393-260-X}}.</ref>{{Rp|88}} In December 1939, after a violent quarrel with Welles over finances, Houseman resigned and returned to New York.<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|356}} To Welles, his departure was a relief.<ref name="Whaley"/>{{Rp|504–505}}<ref name="Leaming OW">{{cite book |last=Leaming |first=Barbara |title=Orson Welles, A Biography |url=https://archive.org/details/orsonwellesbiogr00leam |url-access=registration |publisher=[[Viking Press]] |location=New York |date=1985 |isbn=978-0-618-15446-3}}</ref>{{Rp|235–236}}
In late December, the executive board of [[RKO Pictures]] all but ordered studio chief [[George J. Schaefer]] to stop paying salaries to the Mercury Productions staff until Welles submitted an acceptable script and set a start date for filming.<ref name="Brady"/>{{RP|235}} Over the next five weeks Welles spent many long evenings brainstorming plot ideas in the bedroom of the small rented house where Mankiewicz was in traction with his shattered leg.<ref name=Meryman/>{{Rp|245–246}} Mankiewicz testified in a court proceeding a few years later{{specify|date=January 2022}} that the idea for the film began with a ''[[The March of Time|March of Time]]''-style sequence that set out the life of a particular character whose life would then be the subject of the film.<ref name="Brady"/>{{Rp|235}} Welles later said the germinal idea was to create a posthumous portrait of a man through many points of view, in the recollections of those who knew him.{{efn|[[Geraldine Fitzgerald]] claimed to have suggested the multiple-points-of-view structure to Welles. Soon after ''Citizen Kane'' was released, she reportedly told him, "You know, that's taken from that idea I gave you," to which Welles replied, "I don't want you talking about it."<ref name="Brady"/>{{Rp|246}}}}<ref name="Brady"/>{{Rp|246}} "I'd been nursing an old notion," Welles told Bogdanovich, "the idea of telling the same thing several times—and showing exactly the same thing from wholly different points of view. Basically, the idea ''[[Rashomon (film)|Rashomon]]'' used later on. Mank liked it, so we started searching for the man it was going to be about. Some big American figure—couldn’t be a politician, because you’d have to pinpoint him. [[Howard Hughes]] was the first idea. But we got pretty quickly to the press lords."<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|53}}
Welles and Mankiewicz soon settled on the idea of using newspaper magnate [[William Randolph Hearst]] as their central character.<ref name="Callow"/>{{Rp|484}} By late January their disagreements over plot details were more frequent and their collaboration less creative. "That's why I left him on his own, finally," Welles said later, "because we'd started to waste too much time haggling."<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|54}} In February 1940,<ref name="Houseman RT"/>{{Rp|444, 448}} Welles arranged a lunch at New York's [[21 Club]] and persuaded Houseman to return to California. He was hired to supervise Mankiewicz as he put a rough draft on paper.<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|185}}
On February 19, 1940, Mankiewicz signed a contract with Mercury Productions to work on the screenplay.<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|359|date=January 2013}} He would receive $1,000 a week for his work as long as he was not "incapacitated by illness or any other reasons",<ref name="Brady"/>{{Rp|236}} and would be paid a $5,000 bonus on delivery of the script.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK">{{cite book |last=Carringer |first=Robert L. |title=The Making of Citizen Kane |url=https://archive.org/details/makingofcitizenk00carr |url-access=registration |publisher=[[University of California Press]]|location=Berkeley and Los Angeles |date=1985 |isbn=978-0-520-20567-3}}</ref>{{Rp|17}} Mankiewicz was to receive no credit for his work as he was hired as a [[script doctor]]; a similar clause was present in the writers' contracts for ''The Campbell Playhouse''.<ref name="Callow"/>{{Rp|487}} Mankiewicz was advised by his agents, Columbia Management of California, and before he signed the contract it was again made clear that all credit for his work belonged to Welles and the Mercury Theatre, the "author and creator".<ref name="Brady"/>{{Rp|236–237}} Welles hesitated to officially agree to give Mankiewicz credit. His contract with RKO stated that the film would be produced, directed, performed and written by Welles, and his "boy wonder" persona had great publicity value for the studio.<ref name="Brady"/>{{Rp|236}} Welles's attorney, Arnold Weissberger, did not want to give RKO any cause to break Welles's contract should they wish to promote the film as solely his work. The contract with Mankiewicz left the matter of his receiving credit open; Welles's correspondence with his lawyer indicated that he did not wish to deny credit to Mankiewicz.<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|202}}
[[File:North-Verde-Ranch-Victorville-Postcard.jpg|thumb|right|Mankiewicz and Houseman worked in seclusion at a historic ranch in Victorville, California, for 12 weeks.]]
After he came to agreement with Welles on the story line and character,<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|54}} Mankiewicz was given the job of writing the first draft that Welles could rework.<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|185|December 2014}} In the last week of February or the first week of March 1940,<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|17}} Mankiewicz retreated to the historic North Verde Ranch{{efn|The name of the Victorville ranch where Mankiewicz and Houseman worked changed in 1943, from the North Verde Ranch to its present name, the Kemper Campbell Ranch.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://mojavehistory.com/interviewcampbelldeblasis.html |title=Joseph Campbell and Jean De Blasis Interview |website=Mohave Historical Society Oral Histories |publisher=Mojave Desert History |access-date=2016-02-04 |archive-date=2016-02-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160209024835/http://mojavehistory.com/interviewcampbelldeblasis.html |url-status=live }}</ref>}} (now Kemper Campbell Ranch) on the Mojave River in [[Victorville, California]], to begin working on the script.<ref name=Lebo/>{{Rp|32|date=May 2009}}<ref name=Kilbourne>{{cite book|last=Kilbourne|first=Don|editor1-last=Morsberger|editor1-first=Robert E.|editor2-last=Lesser|editor2-first=Stephen O.|editor3-last=Clark|editor3-first=Randall|title=[[Dictionary of Literary Biography]]|volume=26: American Screenwriters|publisher=[[Gale Research Company]]|location=Detroit|year=1984|pages=[https://archive.org/details/americanscreenwr0000unse_h3m5/page/218 218–224]|chapter=Herman Mankiewicz (1897–1953)|isbn=978-0-8103-0917-3}}</ref>{{Rp|221|date=May 2009}} Welles wanted the work done as inconspicuously as possible,<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|17|date=April 2012}} and the ranch offered the additional advantage of prohibiting alcohol.<ref name="vvdailypress/37094191007">{{cite news |last1=Lindstrom |first1=Natasha |title='Citizen Kane' penned on quiet Victorville ranch |url=https://www.vvdailypress.com/story/news/2011/12/19/citizen-kane-penned-on/37094191007/ |access-date=7 July 2024 |work=Victorville Daily Press}}</ref> But Mankiewicz went into town daily, with John Houseman and, "was allowed one drink per night at the ''Green Spot Cafe'' bar".<ref name="dailybulletin/victorville-connected-kane">{{cite news |title=Route 66 history includes Victorville sites connected to 'Citizen Kane' |url=https://www.dailybulletin.com/2020/12/03/route-66-history-includes-victorville-sites-connected-to-citizen-kane/ |access-date=7 July 2024 |work=Daily Bulletin |date=4 December 2020}}</ref> Mankiewicz was accompanied by a nurse, secretary Rita Alexander, Houseman, and a 300-page rough script of the project that Welles had written. The preliminary work consisted of dialogue and some camera instructions.<ref name="Brady"/>{{Rp|237}}<ref name=Meryman/>{{Rp|252}} Author [[Clinton Heylin]] wrote that Mankiewicz "… probably believed that Welles had little experience as an original scriptwriter … [and] may even have felt that ''John Citizen, USA'', Welles's working title, was a project he could make his own."<ref name=Heylin>{{cite book |last=Heylin |first=Clinton |author-link=Clinton Heylin |title=Despite the System: Orson Welles Versus the Hollywood Studios |publisher=[[Chicago Review Press]] |location=Chicago, IL |year=2006 |isbn=978-1-556-52547-6 |url=https://archive.org/details/despitesystemors00heyl }}</ref>{{Rp|43|date=May 2009}}
Mankiewicz and Houseman worked together in seclusion at the ranch for 12 weeks.<ref name="Brady"/>{{Rp|237}} Houseman was to serve as editor, Carringer noted, "but part of his job was to ride herd on Mankiewicz, whose drinking habits were legendary and whose screenwriting credentials unfortunately did not include a reputation for seeing things through." There was continual communication with Welles,<ref name="Carringer Scripts"/>{{Rp|81}} and Houseman often travelled to Los Angeles to confer with him. Welles visited the ranch occasionally to check on their progress and offer direction.<ref name="Brady"/>{{Rp|237}} With his own secretary, Katherine Trosper, Welles was reworking the draft pages in Hollywood. These pages were given to RKO script supervisor Amalia Kent, who broke the material down in continuity form for the production units.<ref name="Carringer Scripts"/>{{Rp|81–82}} Welles respected her for her service on the unproduced ''Heart of Darkness'' script.<ref name="Carringer Scripts"/>{{Rp|119}} Welles came to suspect that Houseman had turned Mankiewicz against him.<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|213|December 2014}} "When Mank left for Victorville, we were friends. When he came back, we were enemies," Welles told biographer [[Richard Meryman]]. "Mank always needed a villain."<ref name=Meryman/>{{Rp|260}}
==Ideas and collaboration== For some time, Mankiewicz had wanted to write a screenplay about a public figure—perhaps a gangster—whose story would be told by the people who knew him.<ref name="Callow">{{cite book |last=Callow |first=Simon |author-link=Simon Callow |title=Orson Welles: The Road to Xanadu |publisher=[[Viking]] |location=New York |date=1996 |isbn=9780670867226 |url=https://archive.org/details/orsonwellesvolum00simo }}</ref>{{Rp|484}} In the mid-1930s Mankiewicz had written the first act of an unproduced play about [[John Dillinger]], titled ''The Tree Will Grow''.<ref name="Whaley"/>{{Rp|132}} "It was something [Mankiewicz] had been thinking about for years," Houseman wrote, “the idea of telling a man’s private life (preferably one that suggested a recognizable American figure), immediately following his death, through the intimate and often incompatible testimony of those who had known him at different times and in different circumstances.”<ref name="Houseman RT"/>{{Rp|448–449|date=January 2013}}
Welles himself had worked with the concept. As a teenager in 1932 he wrote a play about the life of abolitionist [[John Brown (abolitionist)|John Brown]] called ''[[Marching Song (play)|Marching Song]]''. Like that of ''Citizen Kane'', the play's plot is structured around a journalist attempting to understand Brown by interviewing people who knew him and have different perspectives on him. The plot device of the unseen journalist Thompson in ''Citizen Kane'' is also reminiscent of the unseen Marlow in Welles's proposed film ''Heart of Darkness'', in which the narrator and audience share the point of view.<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|55, 184–185|date=December 2014}} "Orson was from Chicago," said the Mercury Theatre's [[Richard Wilson (director)|Richard Wilson]], "and I believe he was as much influenced by Samuel Insull and Colonel [[Robert R. McCormick|Robert McCormick]] as he was by the figure of Hearst."<ref name="Directors in Action"/>{{Rp|6}} Roger Hill, head of the [[Todd Seminary for Boys]] and Welles's mentor and lifelong friend, wrote that Welles once told him about a project he was considering: "He had outlined to me, years earlier, a plan for a stage play based on the life of an American tycoon who would be a composite of Insull, McCormick and Hearst."<ref name="Time and Chance">{{cite book |last=Hill |first=Roger |date=1977 |title=One Man's Time and Chance, a Memoir of Eighty Years 1895 to 1975 |url=http://lookatillinois.info/content/one-mans-time-and-chance-memoir-eighty-years-1895-1975-cover |location=Woodstock, Illinois |publisher=Privately printed; Woodstock Public Library collection, digitized by Illinois State Library |access-date=December 8, 2014 |archive-date=September 7, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140907031035/http://lookatillinois.info/content/one-mans-time-and-chance-memoir-eighty-years-1895-1975-cover |url-status=live }}</ref>{{Rp|111}} Hill said that even as a boy Welles was interested in the lives of the controversial tycoons: "He sensed, even then, the theatrical impact that could be gained in assaulting, and possibly toppling, giants," wrote Brady.<ref name="Brady"/>{{Rp|230}}
Welles did not know Hearst, but he knew much about him through drama critic [[Ashton Stevens]].<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|44}} He also said that his father and Hearst knew each other.<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|66}}<ref name="Brady"/>{{Rp|230}} When Welles arrived in Hollywood in 1939 everyone was talking about [[Aldous Huxley]]'s new book, ''[[After Many a Summer|After Many a Summer Dies the Swan]]'', a novel that dealt with the film colony and seemed to be a portrait of Hearst. Welles was invited to celebrate Huxley's birthday at a party where the consensus was that the book could never be made into a film due to Hearst's influence.<ref name="Brady"/>{{Rp|218–219}} How much Huxley's book influenced Welles's choice of subject is unknown; Brady wrote that "a more personal coincidence, however, might have helped fuel the idea." Welles's first wife Virginia moved to Los Angeles shortly after their divorce,<ref name="Brady"/>{{Rp|231–232}}<ref>{{cite web |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=950&dat=19400201&id=2-BPAAAAIBAJ&sjid=nFQDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6555,8524 |title=Orson Welles is Divorced by Wife |publisher=[[Associated Press]] ([[Evening Independent]]), February 1, 1940 |access-date=December 14, 2014 |archive-date=September 9, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150909141250/https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=950&dat=19400201&id=2-BPAAAAIBAJ&sjid=nFQDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6555,8524 |url-status=live }}</ref> and on May 18, 1940, she married screenwriter [[Charles Lederer]], favorite nephew of Hearst's mistress [[Marion Davies]].<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|204–205|December 2014}}<ref>{{cite web |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1314&dat=19400518&id=MB5WAAAAIBAJ&sjid=-eMDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6728,826783 |title=Orson Welles' Ex-Wife Weds |publisher=[[Associated Press]] ([[The Spokesman-Review]]), May 18, 1940 |access-date=December 14, 2014 |archive-date=April 29, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160429132011/https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1314&dat=19400518&id=MB5WAAAAIBAJ&sjid=-eMDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6728,826783 |url-status=live }}</ref>{{efn|Welles and Lederer later became great friends.<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|343}}}}
[[File:Hearst Castle Gothic Study p1080553.jpg|thumb|right|Mankiewicz was welcomed into Hearst's private office at San Simeon, where he mingled with [[Arthur Brisbane]] and [[Walter Winchell]] while Hearst presided over his empire.<ref name=Meryman/>{{Rp|230}}]]
In his earlier years as a journalist, Mankiewicz sought political reporters who kept him up on gossip about Hearst, and he had even started to write a play about him.<ref name=Meryman/>{{Rp|53, 72}} Soon after moving to Hollywood in 1926,<ref name=Meryman/>{{Rp|215}} Mankiewicz met Hearst and Davies through his friendship with Lederer.<ref name="Raising Kane"/>{{Rp|20}} "There were two castes in Hollywood," wrote Meryman, "those who had been guests at San Simeon and those who had not." Mankiewicz and his wife were part of the social set invited to [[Hearst Castle]] on several occasions.<ref name=Meryman/>{{Rp|215}} They were always given the same apartment in La Casa del Monte guest cottage<ref name=Meryman/>{{Rp|214}}—"like a little castle of our own," said Sara Mankiewicz.<ref name=Meryman/>{{Rp|227}} A celebrated wit, Mankiewicz was valued for his conversation and was seated near his hosts at dinner. He respected Hearst's knowledge and was privileged to be invited to his private office where he mingled with Hearst's editors and columnists.<ref name=Meryman/>{{Rp|230}} "For the first time Herman's Hollywood pleasure merged with his political scholarship", wrote Meryman.<ref name=Meryman/>{{Rp|212}}
Described by biographer [[Simon Callow]] as "a keen student of power and its abuses",<ref name="Callow"/>{{Rp|484}} Mankiewicz was fascinated by Hearst,<ref name=Meryman/>{{Rp|212}} and Hearst in turn was interested in the former journalist with so much political knowledge.<ref name=Meryman/>{{Rp|230}} Mankiewicz and Lederer delighted in concocting facsimile newspapers that needled Hearst and his publications, for the amusement of Hearst and Davies.<ref name=Meryman/>{{Rp|212–213}} By 1936, however, Mankiewicz was no longer welcome in Hearst's circle due to his drinking and political arguments.<ref name=Meryman/>{{Rp|231}} "Mankiewicz, nursing his resentment, had subsequently become obsessed by both Hearst and Davies," Callow wrote, "collecting stories about them the way small boys collect stamps."<ref name="Callow"/>{{Rp|484}}
==Scripting== [[File:Faustus-Houseman-258-13-crop.jpg|thumb|left|[[John Houseman]] helped write drafts of the script and later went so far as to say that Welles "never wrote a word".<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|204}}{{efn|"[Welles] claims he wrote a parallel script," Houseman told Leaming. "That's all bullshit. He never wrote a word. I can tell you positively he didn't." Leaming notes, "This assertion will seem odd to anyone who has examined Houseman's personal papers deposited at UCLA."<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|204}}}}]] During March, April and early May 1940, Mankiewicz dictated the screenplay, titled ''American''.<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|359|date=January 2013}}<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|17–18}} Welles re-wrote and revised an incomplete first draft given to him, dated April 16, and sent it back to Victorville.<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|185|December 2014}} Forty-four revision pages dated April 28 were given to Welles.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|23}} Mankiewicz and Houseman delivered the second draft, bearing a handwritten date of May 9,<ref name="Carringer Scripts"/>{{Rp|99}} to Welles after finishing their work in Victorville. Mankiewicz immediately went to work on another project for MGM,{{efn|For the next five weeks Mankiewicz wrote the first draft of the script for MGM's ''[[Comrade X]]'' and received no screen credit. He also continued to work on the script for Welles's picture, sending a partially reworked script in early June that was not used. At this time he obtained a copy of Welles's draft and sent it, with his complaints, to Houseman in New York. Houseman responded on June 16 that he liked most of Welles's new scenes.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|155}}}}<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|24}} and Houseman left for New York four days later.<ref name=Meryman/>{{Rp|257}}
"Despite Houseman's description of himself and Herman paring every excess out of ''American'', it was 325 pages long and outrageously overwritten, even for a first draft," wrote Meryman. "Houseman blandly ignores this fact. He implies that ''American'', with only the conventional amount of polishing, was what was filmed."<ref name=Meryman/>{{Rp|257}}{{efn|For comparison purposes, author Harlan Lebo summarizes the plot of the original script, which "varies greatly from the finished film".<ref name="Lebo"/>{{Rp|18–26}}}} Welles had been editing and rewriting the script pages in Beverly Hills. With the Victorville script now in hand he cut it by some 75 pages, and added or revised more than 170 pages.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|26–27}} "By far the most serious dramatic problem in ''American'' is its treatment of Kane," wrote Carringer.<ref name="Carringer Scripts"/>{{Rp|21}} The RKO legal department warned Welles that it was too close a portrait of Hearst and that if the script was not changed a suit for libel or invasion of privacy was almost certain.<ref name="Brady"/>{{Rp|244}}
"There is a quality in the film—much more than a vague perfume—that was Mank and that I treasured," Welles said. "It was a kind of controlled, cheerful virulence … I personally liked Kane, but I went with that. And that probably gave the picture a certain tension, the fact that one of the authors hated Kane and one loved him. But in his hatred of Hearst, or whoever Kane was, Mank didn't have a clear enough image of who the ''man'' was. Mank saw him simply as an egomaniac monster with all these people around him."<ref name=Meryman/>{{Rp|260}} Mankiewicz had made a study of Hearst over many years, and he had firsthand knowledge as one of his frequent guests at San Simeon; but he also drew on published accounts about Hearst for the script. "He always denied it," wrote Carringer, "but coincidences between ''American'' and [[Ferdinand Lundberg]]'s ''Imperial Hearst'' are hard to explain." Welles removed a great deal of Mankiewicz's Hearst material, but Lundberg would eventually file suit nevertheless.{{efn|In 1947 Ferdinand Lundberg sued the creators of ''Citizen Kane'' for copyright infringement. In his November 1950 testimony Mankiewicz freely stated that he had read ''Imperial Hearst'' (1937) but insisted that he knew firsthand things that had appeared only in the book. The trial ended in a hung jury. RKO settled out of court.<ref name="Carringer Scripts"/>{{Rp|120}}}}<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|21, 23}}
The fourth draft dated June 18 was the first to be titled ''Citizen Kane''.<ref name="Whaley"/>{{Rp|102}} The title was contributed by RKO studio chief George Schaefer,<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|82}} who was concerned that calling the film ''American'' would seem cynical and identify too closely with Hearst, whose newspapers included the ''American Weekly'' and the ''New York Journal-American''.{{efn|Welles said, "''Citizen Kane'' came from George Schaefer … It's a great title. We'd sat around for months trying to think of a name for it. Mankiewicz couldn't, I couldn't, none of the actors—we had a contest on. A secretary came up with one that was so bad I'll never forget it: ''A Sea of Upturned Faces''."<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|82}}}}<ref name="Brady"/>{{Rp|246}} Mankiewicz and Houseman were put back on the Mercury payroll<ref name=Meryman/>{{Rp|262}} June 18 – July 27,<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|29–30}} and continued to help revise the script.<ref name="Brady"/>{{Rp|238}} Dated July 16, 1940, the final shooting script was 156 pages.<ref name="Carringer Scripts"/>{{Rp|82, 114}} "After seven complete revisions, Welles finally had what he wanted," wrote Brady.<ref name="Brady"/>{{Rp|244}} Carringer summarized:
<blockquote>Mankiewicz (with assistance from Houseman and with input from Welles) wrote the first two drafts. His principal contributions were the story frame, a cast of characters, various individual scenes, and a good share of the dialogue. … Welles added the narrative brilliance—the visual and verbal wit, the stylistic fluidity, and such stunningly original strokes as the newspaper montages and the breakfast table sequence. He also transformed Kane from a cardboard fictionalization of Hearst into a figure of mystery and epic magnificence. ''Citizen Kane'' is the only major Welles film on which the writing credit is shared. Not coincidentally, it is also the Welles film that has the strongest story, the most fully realized characters, and the most carefully sculpted dialogue. Mankiewicz made the difference.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|35}}</blockquote>
Welles called Mankiewicz's contribution to the script "enormous".<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|52–53|date=April 2012}} He summarized the screenwriting process: "The initial ideas for this film and its basic structure were the result of direct collaboration between us; after this we separated and there were two screenplays: one written by Mr. Mankiewicz, in Victorville, and the other, in Beverly Hills, by myself. … The final version of the screenplay … was drawn from both sources."<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|500}}<ref>{{cite news |last=Welles |first=Orson |date=November 17, 1971 |title=The Creation of ''Citizen Kane'' |newspaper=[[The Times]] |location=London}}</ref>
In 1969, when he was interviewed for the official magazine of the [[Directors Guild of America]], Houseman concurred with Welles's description of the scripting process: "He [Welles] added a great deal of material himself, and later he and Herman had a dreadful row over the screen credit. As far as I could judge, the co-billing was correct. The ''Citizen Kane'' script was the product of both of them."<ref name="Directors in Action">{{cite book |editor-last=Thomas |editor-first=Bob |title=Directors in Action: Selections from Action, The Official Magazine of the Directors Guild of America |publisher=The Bobbs Merrill Company, Inc. |location=Indianapolis |year=1973 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/directorsinactio00thom/page/1 1–11] |chapter=Citizen Kane Remembered [May–June 1969] |chapter-url=http://www.dga.org/Craft/DGAQ/All-Articles/0601-Spring-2006/Features-Raising-Kane.aspx |isbn=0-672-51715-9 |url=https://archive.org/details/directorsinactio00thom/page/1 }}</ref>{{Rp|6}}
But at the same time, Houseman was stirring controversy, lunching with film critic [[Pauline Kael]] and giving Mankiewicz total credit for the creation of the script for ''Citizen Kane''.<ref name=Lebo/>{{Rp|32|date=May 2009}}<ref name="Whaley"/>{{Rp|471}}<ref name="Wellesnet Houseman">{{cite web |url=http://www.wellesnet.com/?p=266 |title=John Houseman on 'What happened to Orson Welles?' |publisher=Wellesnet.com |date=August 21, 2008 |access-date=December 7, 2014 |archive-date=May 22, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120522090215/http://www.wellesnet.com/?p=266 |url-status=live }}</ref> Carringer wrote that "in his lengthy account of the Victorville interlude, Houseman gives the impression that Mankiewicz started out with a clean slate, and that virtually everything in the Victorville drafts is Mankiewicz's original invention."{{efn|Act Three of Houseman's 1972 autobiography ''Run Through'' is dedicated "to the memory of Herman Mankiewicz".<ref name="Houseman RT"/>{{Rp|445–461}}}}<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|18}} Houseman would openly say that Mankiewicz deserved sole credit for writing the film for many years<ref name="Cahiers 65">{{cite news |last1=Rubio |first1=Juan Cobos Miguel |last2=Pruneda |first2=Jose Antonio |title=Interview with Orson Welles |publisher=[[Cahiers du Cinéma]], number 165 |location=Paris, France |date=April 1965}}</ref>—right up until his death—without explaining the contradictions present even in his own personal papers.<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|499–500}}<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|204}}
==Authorship== One of the long-standing controversies about ''Citizen Kane'' has been the authorship of the screenplay.<ref name="Meryman"/>{{Rp|237}} Mankiewicz was enraged when an August 1940 column by [[Louella Parsons]] quoted Welles as saying, " … and so I wrote ''Citizen Kane''."<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|201}}<ref name="Callow"/>{{Rp|517}} When RKO released the film in May 1941, the souvenir program included a double-page spread depicting Welles as "the four-most personality of motion pictures … author, producer, director, star."<ref name="Meryman"/>{{Rp|270}}<ref>{{cite book |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |title=Souvenir Program, Citizen Kane |location=New York |publisher=RKO Pictures/Winkler and Ramen |date=1941}}</ref> Mankiewicz wrote his father, "I'm particularly furious at the incredibly insolent description of how Orson wrote his masterpiece. The fact is that there isn't one single line in the picture that wasn't in writing—writing from and by me—before ever a camera turned."<ref name=Meryman>{{cite book |last=Meryman |first=Richard |author-link=Richard Meryman |title=Mank: The Wit, World and Life of Herman Mankiewicz |publisher=[[William Morrow and Company]], Inc. |location=New York |date=1978 |isbn=978-0-688-03356-9 |url=https://archive.org/details/mankwitworldlife00mery }}</ref>{{Rp|270|date=May 2009}}
Mankiewicz had seen rushes of the film shortly before this and said he was unhappy with the footage. However, Mankiewicz's assessment of the footage was full of contradictions. He told Welles that there were "not enough standard movie conventions being observed" and that he disliked the theatricality and lack of close-ups in the film. But Mankiewicz also called the footage "magnificent" and said he liked it "from an aesthetical point of view." He also said that he thought the audience would not understand the film.<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|204|December 2014}}
Mankiewicz began threatening Welles to get credit for the film. This included threatening to post full-page ads in trade papers and getting his friend [[Ben Hecht]] to write an exposé about their collaboration in ''[[The Saturday Evening Post]]''. Mankiewicz also threatened to go to the [[Screen Writers Guild]] and claim full credit for writing the entire script by himself. Welles biographer Barbara Leaming believes that Mankiewicz reacted this way out of fear of getting no credit at all.<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|204|December 2014}}
After lodging a protest with the Screen Writers Guild, Mankiewicz withdrew it, then vacillated. The question was resolved in January 1941 when RKO awarded Mankiewicz credit. The guild credit form listed Welles first, Mankiewicz second. Welles's assistant Richard Wilson said that the person who circled Mankiewicz's name in pencil, then drew an arrow that put it in first place, was Welles. The official credit reads, "Screenplay by Herman J. Mankiewicz and Orson Welles".<ref name=Meryman/>{{Rp|264–265}}
Mankiewicz's rancor toward Welles grew over the remaining 12 years of his life. Welles's irritation with Mankiewicz passed quickly, and he spoke of him with fondness.<ref name="Whaley"/>{{Rp|498}}
"One of the things that bound his friends to him was his extraordinary vulnerability," Welles told Mankiewicz's biographer. "He liked the attention he got as a great, monumental self-destructing machine. That was his role, and he played it to the hilt. He was a performer, as I think all very successful personalities are. He couldn’t be affectionate or loving outside his family. You never felt you were basking in the warmth of his friendship. So it was his vulnerability that brought the warmth out from the friends. And people loved him. ''Loved'' him. That terrible vulnerability. That terrible wreck."<ref name=Meryman/>{{Rp|168}}
Welles further said this to Mankiewicz's biographer: "I have only one real enemy in my life that I know about, and that is John Houseman. Everything begins and ends with that hostility behind the mandarin benevolence."<ref name=Meryman/>{{Rp|255}}
=="Raising Kane"== {{main|Raising Kane}} {{multiple image <!-- Essential parameters --> | align = right | direction = vertical | width = 170 <!-- Image 1 --> | image1 = Pauline Kael (1968).jpg | alt1 = | caption1 = Film critic [[Pauline Kael]]'s 1971 essay created a controversy by claiming Mankiewicz deserved full credit for writing the screenplay. <!-- Image 2 --> | image2 = Citizen-Kane-Book-FE.jpg | alt2 = | caption2 = "[[Raising Kane]]" was published in ''[[The New Yorker]]'' and in ''The Citizen Kane Book'' (1971). }} Questions over the authorship of the ''Citizen Kane'' screenplay were revived in 1971 by influential film critic [[Pauline Kael]],<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|494}} whose controversial 50,000-word essay "[[Raising Kane]]" was printed in two consecutive issues of ''[[The New Yorker]]'' and subsequently as a long introduction to the shooting script in ''The Citizen Kane Book''.<ref name="Raising Kane">{{cite book |last1=Kael |first1=Pauline |author-link1=Pauline Kael |last2=Welles |first2=Orson |author-link2=Orson Welles |last3=Mankiewicz |first3=Herman J. |author-link3=Herman J. Mankiewicz |year=1971 |title=The Citizen Kane Book |chapter=Raising Kane by Pauline Kael |chapter-url=http://www.paulrossen.com/paulinekael/raisingkane.html |location=Boston |publisher=[[Little, Brown and Company]] |pages=1–84 |oclc=301527105 |access-date=December 4, 2014 |archive-date=June 20, 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060620060353/http://www.paulrossen.com/paulinekael/raisingkane.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Kael's unacknowledged primary source was Houseman.{{efn|In May 1969 Houseman recorded in his journal that he had a long lunch with Kael, who "seems highly agitated over her 'discovery' of Herman Mankiewicz. I gave her all the information I had and will send her more."<ref name="Houseman FD">{{cite book |last=Houseman |first=John |author-link=John Houseman |title=Final Dress |publisher=Simon and Schuster |location=New York |date=1983 |isbn=0671420313}}</ref>{{Rp|389}}}}<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|203–204}}
"The major focus of Kael's essay is its defense and celebration of screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz as the principal, neglected creative force behind ''Kane''," wrote film critic [[Jonathan Rosenbaum]]. "According to Kael, the script was written almost entirely by Mankiewicz, and Welles had actively plotted to deprive him of any screen credit."<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|494}} The mainstream press accepted Kael's essay—an extension of her dispute with [[Andrew Sarris]] and the [[auteur theory]]—based on her credibility as one of the country's top film critics.<ref name="Roberts">{{cite book |last=Roberts |first=Jerry |title=The Complete History of American Film Criticism |publisher=Santa Monica Press LLC |location=Santa Monica, CA |date=2010 |isbn=978-1-595-80049-7}}</ref>{{Rp|206–207}}
"Raising Kane" angered many critics, most notably [[Peter Bogdanovich]], a close friend of Welles who rebutted Kael's claims in "The Kane Mutiny", an October 1972 article for ''[[Esquire (magazine)|Esquire]]''.{{efn|"The by-line carried only my name," Bogdanovich later wrote, "but Orson had taken a strong hand in revising and rewriting. Why shouldn't he? He was fighting for his life."<ref name="Welles TIOW2">{{cite book |last1=Welles |first1=Orson |author-link1=Orson Welles |last2=Bogdanovich |first2=Peter |author-link2=Peter Bogdanovich |last3=Rosenbaum |first3=Jonathan |author-link3=Jonathan Rosenbaum |title=[[This is Orson Welles]] |edition=2nd |publisher=[[Da Capo Press]] |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |date=1998 |pages=vii–xxxix |chapter=My Orson [new introduction by Peter Bogdanovich] |isbn=9780306808340}}</ref>{{Rp|xxiv}}}}{{efn|"The Kane Mutiny" also appears in ''Focus on Orson Welles'' (1976), edited by Ronald Gottesman, and is excerpted in Bogdanovich's new introduction to the 1998 edition of ''This is Orson Welles''.}}<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bogdanovich |first1=Peter |last2=Welles |first2=Orson (uncredited) |date=October 1972 |title=The Kane Mutiny |journal=[[Esquire (magazine)|Esquire]] |pages=99–105, 180–190}}</ref> The article included the revelation that Kael used the research and interviews of Dr. [[Howard Suber]], an assistant professor at UCLA where she was then a guest lecturer, without ever crediting him.<ref name="Focus on OW">{{cite book |last1=Bogdanovich |first1=Peter |last2=Welles |first2=Orson (uncredited) |editor-last=Gottesman |editor-first=Ronald |year=1976 |title=Focus on Orson Welles |chapter=The Kane Mutiny |location=Englewood Cliffs, N.J. |publisher=Prentice-Hall |pages=28–53 |isbn=0-13-949214-3}}</ref>{{Rp|30}}
Other rebuttals included articles by Sarris,<ref>{{cite journal |last=Sarris |first=Andrew |author-link=Andrew Sarris |date=April 15, 1971 |title=Films in Focus |url=http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2010/12/andrew_sarris_v.php |journal=[[The Village Voice]] |access-date=December 4, 2014 |archive-date=December 7, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141207223725/http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2010/12/andrew_sarris_v.php |url-status=dead }}</ref> [[Joseph McBride (writer)|Joseph McBride]]<ref>{{cite journal |last=McBride |first=Joseph |date=Fall 1971 |title=Rough Sledding with Pauline Kael |journal=Film Heritage |location=Dayton, Ohio |publisher=[[University of Dayton]] |pages=13–16, 32}}</ref> and Rosenbaum,<ref>{{cite journal |last=Rosenbaum |first=Jonathan |title=I Missed It at the Movies: Objections to 'Raising Kane' |url=http://www.jonathanrosenbaum.net/1972/04/i-missed-it-at-the-movies-objections-to-%E2%80%9Craising-kane%E2%80%9D/ |journal=Film Comment |issue=Spring 1972 |access-date=December 3, 2014 |archive-date=December 7, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141207215352/http://www.jonathanrosenbaum.net/1972/04/i-missed-it-at-the-movies-objections-to-%E2%80%9Craising-kane%E2%80%9D/ |url-status=live }}</ref> interviews with [[George Coulouris]] and [[Bernard Herrmann]] that appeared in ''[[Sight & Sound]]'',<ref>{{cite journal |last=Gilling |first=Ted |date=Spring 1972 |title=[Interview with George Coulouris and Bernard Herrmann on] ''The Citizen Kane Book'' |journal=[[Sight & Sound]] |pages=71–73}}</ref> a definitive study of the scripts by Carringer<ref name="Carringer Scripts"/> and remarks in Welles biographies by Leaming<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|203–204|date=April 2012}} and Brady.<ref name="Brady"/>{{Rp|553–554}} Rosenbaum's 2020 preface to his earlier essay also references the fact that the 1972 Bogdanovich piece was ghost-written by Welles himself. Rosenbaum also reviewed the controversy in his editor's notes to ''[[This is Orson Welles]]'' (1992).<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|494–501|date=April 2012}}
"Orson was vigorously defended," wrote biographer Barton Whaley, "but in less prominently placed articles; so, again, the damage was immense and permanent."<ref name="Whaley"/>{{Rp|394}}
=="The Scripts of Citizen Kane"== Questions of authorship were further clarified with Carringer's 1978 essay, "The Scripts of Citizen Kane".<ref name="Carringer Scripts"/>{{efn|First published in ''[[Critical Inquiry]]'', "The Scripts of Citizen Kane" was described by Rosenbaum as "the definitive piece of scholarship on the authorship of ''Kane''—and sadly one of the least well known". He wrote that many biographers may wrongly assume that Carringer included all of its facts in his later book, ''The Making of Citizen Kane''.<ref name="Discovering OW">{{cite book |editor-last=Rosenbaum |editor-first=Jonathan |title=Discovering Orson Welles |publisher=University of California Press |location=Berkeley, CA |date=2007 |isbn=978-0-520-25123-6}}</ref>{{Rp|18, 247}}}} Carringer studied the collection of script records—"almost a day-to-day record of the history of the scripting"—that was then still intact at RKO. He reviewed all seven drafts and concluded that "the full evidence reveals that Welles's contribution to the ''Citizen Kane'' script was not only substantial but definitive."<ref name="Carringer Scripts">{{cite book |last=Carringer |first=Robert L. |editor-last=Naremore |editor-first=James |title=Orson Welles's Citizen Kane: A Casebook |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |date=2004 |orig-year=first published 1978 |pages=79–121 |chapter=The Scripts of ''Citizen Kane'' |isbn=978-0-19-515892-2}}</ref>{{Rp|80}} Carringer finally assessed that it was Welles who transformed the script “from a solid basis for a story into an authentic plan for a masterpiece.”<ref>{{cite web|title=Who Wrote 'Citizen Kane'? It's No Mystery|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/06/movies/mank-citizen-kane-orson-welles.html|website=The New York Times|date=6 December 2020}}</ref>
Carringer found that the issues raised by Kael rested on the evidence of an early draft of the screenplay, primarily written by Mankiewicz,<ref name="Carringer Scripts"/>{{Rp|80}} which "elaborated the plot logic and laid down the overall story contours, established the main characters, and provided numerous scenes and lines that would eventually appear in one form or another in the film."<ref name="Carringer Scripts"/>{{Rp|115}} At that stage of the scripting, Kane was a caricature of Hearst rather than the fully developed character of the final film.<ref name="Carringer Scripts"/>{{Rp|98, 116}} Carringer found clues in the second draft that Welles was guiding the script, and in the third draft he documented Welles's direct involvement<ref name="Carringer Scripts"/>{{Rp|105}} and responsibility for the first major revisions.<ref name="Carringer Scripts"/>{{Rp|109–110}} "That the subsequent installments are also attributable chiefly to Welles is indicated both by the circumstances and by the nature of the revisions," Carringer wrote.<ref name="Carringer Scripts"/>{{Rp|116}}
Carringer observed that ''Citizen Kane'' is one of the few Welles projects based on an original story idea rather than an adaption of existing work. "Mankiewicz was hired to furnish him with what any good first writer ought to be able to provide in such a case: a solid, durable story structure on which to build," Carringer wrote. Welles then "adapted it with the same freedom and disregard for authority with which he adapt[ed] a Shakespeare play or a thriller by Nicholas Blake."<ref name="Carringer Scripts"/>{{Rp|117}}
==Accolades== At the [[14th Academy Awards]], the screenplay for ''Citizen Kane'' received the [[14th Academy Awards|Academy Award]] for [[Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay|Best Original Screenplay]], shared by Herman J. Mankiewicz and Orson Welles.<ref name="Oscars1942">{{cite web |url=http://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1942 |title=The 14th Academy Awards (1942) Nominees and Winners |date=3 October 2014 |publisher=Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science |access-date=March 27, 2016 |archive-date=August 12, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160812122603/http://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1942 |url-status=live }}</ref>
==Notes== {{notelist}}
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== *{{cite book |last1=Welles |first1=Orson |last2=Mankiewicz |first2=Herman Jacob |last3=Kael |first3=Pauline |title=Citizen Kane: the complete screenplay |date=2002 |publisher=Methuen |url=https://openlibrary.org/books/OL7480489M/Citizen_Kane_%28Methuen_Film%29| url-access = registration |access-date = 22 February 2025| oclc = 496300031 |location=London |isbn=9780413771872|ol=7480489M }}
{{Citizen Kane}}
[[Category:Citizen Kane]] [[Category:Films with screenplays by Herman J. Mankiewicz|Citizen Kane screenplay]] [[Category:Films with screenplays by Orson Welles|Citizen Kane screenplay]]