A sled named Rosebud outlived Hearst's news blackout
Orson Welles's first feature arrived with rare final-cut power, a composite tycoon, and a dying whisper. William Randolph Hearst barred the film from his papers. It lost money, nearly vanished, then returned via French critics—and spent five Sight and Sound decades at number one.
Citizen Kane (1941) was directed, produced, and headlined by Orson Welles, co-written with Herman J. Mankiewicz. Charles Foster Kane mixes traits of Hearst, Joseph Pulitzer, Samuel Insull, Harold McCormick, and the writers themselves. After Mercury Theatre fame and the 1938 War of the Worlds radio panic, Welles signed with RKO in 1939—unusual freedom for a novice: own story, cast, crew, and final cut. Photography ran in 1940; release followed in 1941.
Hearst ordered silence in his newspapers. Critics cheered, but the box office did not repay costs. Praise from André Bazin and a 1956 reissue revived interest; in 1958 it ranked ninth on the Brussels 12 list. For fifty years across five Sight and Sound polls (1962–2002) it held first place, topped AFI's 1998 and 2007 lists, entered the National Film Registry's 1989 inaugural twenty-five, and won the Original Screenplay Oscar among nine nominations. Gregg Toland's camerawork, Robert Wise's editing, and Bernard Herrmann's score are still called pioneering.
The plot hunts the meaning of Kane's last word, Rosebud. Reporter Jerry Thompson traces a Colorado childhood, a Thatcher guardianship after an 1871 mine fortune, yellow journalism at the New York Inquirer, a ruined marriage and governorship campaign, and Susan Alexander's coerced opera career. Only the audience learns that Rosebud was the trade name on the sled Kane played with the day he left home—tossed into a furnace while staff clear Xanadu. Welles's RKO deal (signed 21 August 1939) paid Mercury $100,000 for the first film plus profit participation and barred studio cuts under a $500,000 budget—resented industry-wide, backed by studio head George J. Schaefer.
Source: Citizen Kane
