It’s All True
This episode focuses on Orson Welles tenure at RKO.
Citizen Kane was Welles’ first movie. He was starting from ground zero in terms of learning the process. He had the creative energy needed. He leaned heavily on others to teach him or handle the technical aspects of film making.
RKO chief George Schaefer got increasingly nervous and wanted to know what was going on in the production of Citizen Kane. He had a spy on the set. Welles did what he could to keep accurate information from flowing to Schaefer.
The main character in Citizen Kane was clearly based on newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. This created problems. Louella Parsons, a columnist who worked for Hearst, was given a private screening of the movie before it was publicly released. She left the screening looking quite angry.
Citizen Kane was not successful at the box office. Hearst’s newspapers did not cover it.
Welles follow up to Citizen Kane was The Magnificent Ambersons. He was unable to get everyone to follow him from Citizen Kane. This created some problems for him as he had to replace more experienced people with less experienced ones. There were all sorts of technical challenges. Ultimately the movie was recut by the studio when Welles was in Brazil doing work on behalf of the US Government.
Welles trip to Brazil proved to be problematic for him. He created waves by shooting footage mostly of people of color. RKO and the Brazilian government did not approve. Welles was not responsive to requests for information from RKO while he was in Brazil. Welles was eventually fired and his movie making trip to Brazil was shut down. George Schaefer, the head of RKO, also lost his job at this time.
People interviewed for this episode include
- William Alland, actor
- Miriam Geiger, researcher
- James G. Stewart, sound re-recording
- Maurice Seiderman, make-up artist
- Ralph Hoge, grips - Toland camera team
- Linwood Dunn, optical effects
- Reginald Armour, executive assistant to George Schaefer
- John Houseman, co-founder - Mercury Theatre
- Robert Wise, film editor
- Shifra Haran, secretary to Orson Welles
- Joseph Biroc, camera operator
- Betty Amster, secretary
- Grande Otelo, singer and dancer
- Ricard Wilson, assistant director
Roughly half of this episode is focused on Citizen Kane (1941). I'm glad I held off on watching this episode until after I watched the movie again.
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