By RAY KELLY
Harlan Lebo has expanded his brilliant book Citizen Kane: A Filmmaker’s Journey with new research and insight into how 25-year-old Orson Welles overcame a flawed script, infighting at the studio that hired him, and efforts by media mogul William Randolph Hearst to suppress a film that would later be hailed as a masterpiece.
Upon its publication in 2016, The New York Times Book Reviews lauded Citizen Kane: A Filmmaker’s Journey as “the most thorough account yet of the genesis, production and release of Welles’s most famous film.”
Lebo admits to being deeply fascinated by Welles’ first Hollywood production.
“The combination of the young inexperienced director making the best movie of its time with attempts to suppress it is a story I could not resist,” Lebo said. “First time readers will be struck by the almost impossible challenges Orson Welles faced in making Citizen Kane — and having it turn out to be the brilliant achievement it was. It’s an incredible story.”
With an additional 16,000 words, the 384-page paperback edition, set for release by Angel City Press on January 18, makes use of RKO Radio Pictures documents and correspondence uncovered and collected by noted Welles scholar Robert Carringer, as well as Hearst files curated by archivist Taylor Coffman. The text is supported by 102 images — more than triple the amount found in the original release.
“In these troves of information, I discovered there was more of the story to be told,” Lebo said.
He said he learned more of the steps Hearst took to suppress Citizen Kane, and the infighting among top RKO executives.
“There were people who were against not only Welles but (RKO president) George Schaefer, Lebo said. The leader was J.J. McDonough,” vice president in charge of financial matters at RKO.
He added, “There was a genuine fear Orson would screw this up and it would be a genuine monetary loss.”
Schaefer was ousted from RKO in 1942 and Welles subsequently fired by the studio after it recut The Magnificent Ambersons and shelved It’s All True.
In addition to the studio politics, Lebo has delved deeper into the scripting of Citizen Kane.
While Carringer expertly documented the contributions of Welles and Herman Mankiewicz in his 1978 study The Scripts of Citizen Kane, Lebo has uncovered extensive changes Welles made to the script during filming.
He has created an overlay using the Third Revised Final script and a new transcript of the finished film he fashioned. The overlay reveals hundreds of deletions and additions made by Welles to the screenplay during the production of Citizen Kane.
Lebo first shared the overlay with Wellesnet readers in late 2020, noting at the time that “the late changes transformed the script from a relatively straightforward narrative into a platform for powerful visual images and innovative storytelling that allowed Welles, cinematographer Gregg Toland, and the production team to create the cinema masterpiece we know today.”
He considers the Third Revised Final script to be “overly long and unfocused.”
“You had pages upon pages about Kane’s relationship with (his first wife) Emily and Kane ranting about his place in the world,” Lebo said.
Also, Welles made Kane more likable as a young man, Lebo said. “Otherwise, audiences would have had no sympathy for him. (The revisions were) entirely Welles’ work — creatively brilliant.”
Citizen Kane: A Filmmaker’s Journey takes readers from its scripting to its release and beyond.
Lebo looks at Kane‘s legacy, Ted Turner’s failed effort to colorize the film in the 1980s and recent restorations following the loss of the original negative.
The expanded edition of the book follows Citizen Kane’s 80th anniversary with new 4K UHD and Blu-ray releases in the U.S. (Criterion Collection) and Europe (Warner Home Entertainment).
Lebo has graciously given Wellesnet access to some of the materials he used in Citizen Kane: A Filmmaker’s Journey, including his Third Revised Final script overlay, the film’s budget (actual and estimated), a RKO soundstage guide, and a newly updated cast and crew list and more.
They can be accessed and downloaded at wellesnet.com/citizen-kane-resources
The materials will be appreciated by classic film enthusiasts and Welles scholars.
“Citizen Kane is a textbook on how to do it right,” Lebo said.
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(Harlan Lebo, a senior fellow at the Center for the Digital Future at USC Annenberg, writes about the arts, sciences, and digital technology. He has written books about Casablanca, The Godfather, and Citizen Kane, the three top movies in the American Film Institute’s list of the 100 greatest motion pictures of all time. The expanded edition of Citizen Kane: A Filmmaker’s Journey is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Angel City Press.)
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