Kane Question

[David N]

I've been a long time observer to this site and I finally have something to offer. It concerns the scene in the screening room after the "News on the March" segment. I'd always read that Alan Ladd had a bit part in this scene and Roger Ebert identifies him in his commentary on the new dvd. He's the guy leaning forward after Rawlston says " do you remember, boys?". Older versions of Kane played much darker than the dvd and you never could get a good look at the other reporters in the room. I've now convinced myself that Ebert was wrong and that Ladd is the one lighting up his pipe after the lights come up. He also smokes a pipe at the end of the film. I believe the man Ebert identified is actually Joseph Cotton (to the left in the frame). The man to the right of him looks like Erskine Sanford (Mr. Carter) looking more like he did when he played the judge in Lady from Shanghai. To the right of him is Gus Schilling (the waiter in Susan's nightclub). The man to the left of Cotton looks like "Solly". And if you pause quickly after Rawlston starts moving out of the frame after saying "do you remember boys" is a face I've convinced myself is Orson himself. I wrote Ebert's "Answer Man" but since he may never respond, I thought I'd give it a shot over here. Am I seeing things, boys? It seems such a Wellesian thing to do: populate the screening room with characters from the film. In all the material I've ever read about Kane, I've never heard anyone mention this. Comments?

[colwood]

Thanks to the clarity of the dvd, you can clearly see many people who were completely in the dark in earlier prints. yes that's Joe Cotten and Erskine Sanford. Not sure about the others but it sounds plausible. I've read that this was among the footage that Welles shot under the pretense that it was all test footage. And since no everyone is supposed to be obscured by shadows anyway, it seems logical that many of the male actors in the film would be occupying seats in this scene.

BTW, I've read others who have said that Ebert got it wrong and Ladd is not in this particular scene at all.

[jbrooks]

I seem to recall Ebert acknowledging his error in an "Answer Man" column a few years back.

I will have to watch the sequence again to see if I can spot Welles. I recall Welles did tell Bogdanovich on the tapes for "This is Orson Welles" that he appeared in that sequence.

Warner's DVD folks botched that scene on the DVD -- it is far too bright.

[Harvey Chartrand]

I'd like to put in a good word here for Philip Van Zandt, whose dynamic performance as Rawlston makes the screening room scene work.
Van Zandt had a few more good roles in him (House of Frankenstein, The Big Clock, The Tall Men, Man of a Thousand Faces) but was increasingly relegated to uncredited appearances and extra work through the fifties. He also became a foil for The Three Stooges, and turned up in their funniest film ever – FIFI BLOWS HER TOP. In 1958, at age 53, Van Zandt, depressed over his flagging career and broke due to his gambling compulsion, committed suicide by swallowing a fistful of sleeping pills. Too bad Welles couldn't have given Van Zandt a cameo on TOUCH OF EVIL, as he managed to get quite a few of his old friends from the KANE days on the payroll (Gus Schilling, Harry Shannon, Ray Collins...). Van Zandt was another Hollywood tragedy.

[David N]

Ladd is there. Just not where Ebert says he is. THanks for confirming the others. Ebert wrote a few weeks ago about a shot by shot screening he did in a classroom setting. Someone noticed the chair being pulled out of the way for the camera by an unseen hand when Thatcher gets up from it in the Colorado scene. Seems like such a small moment but it got Roger all fired up. That prompted me to go back and revisit Rawlston scene. I have to believe the dvd is too bright and that Welles never intended us to see them so clearly. It's so audacious to put these characters in that scene. He may have done it for economy but I have to believe he was being the prankster/magician again.

[Roger Ryan]

Personally, I think it's kind of cool that we can now identify the "reporters"! I agree that the scene is printed too brightly, but that doesn't deter from my enjoyment of it. I doubt any first time viewers (does such a thing still exist?) would be able to identify any of the actors, thereby spoiling the suspension of disbelief. By the way, I'm certain that is Gus Schilling in there as well.

Since we're on the topic of in-jokes in "Kane", have most of you recognized the significance of the number painted on the boxes that Bernstein drops in the early Inquirer Office scene? "891" was the number given to the Federal Theater project which gave Welles and Houseman their early success on Broadway.

[Glenn Anders]

Just the kind of thing I was talking about on another thread, Roger.

Thank you, Jaime, for reminding me of Philip Van Zant and the sad manner of his passing. He was an incisive actor, who rather soon declined into a lot of B-Pictures. He worked fairly steadily from the time that Welles put him on the movie map, but perhaps his gambling habit took the money.

As for figures in the background of the scene in the screening room, obviously Welles did not intend some of featured actors in CITIZEN KANE to be recognizable to the audience. The experts over at the magazine, Widescreen, may have an explanation. They claim that most TV screens and monitors are badly calibrated at the factory. The light level is set too too high, and as a result, we do not see movies as they were meant to be seen in the theater, and the stress on the electronics robs the TV set of several years in peak performance. They recommend carefully turning down the "brightness" and "picture" controls, while reducing "ambiant light" in the viewing area. Following their advice, and using CITIZEN KANE as my test film when working on the adjustment, I have put Joe Cotton, Gus Schilling, etc, properly back into the shadows, brought the black and white photography of Toland and Welles into to its proper perspective, and improved the picture of all the other films that I watch, whether monochrome or color.

When you have identified all the people we're not supposed to see in that sequence, you might try that.

Glenn

[Knowles Noel Shane]

When I use that THX Optimizer thing on the Lucas discs my screen comes out a lot darker, you're right Glenn. About the doubling of actors, I guess it doesn't matter how well disguised by darkness the actors were, since the first time movie viewer wouldn't know who any of them were and woudn't recognize them when they appeared later in other roles. I recently read Higham's ridiculous remark about Agnes Moorhead being a member of the town chorus commenting on the Ambersons. Higham thought it was a slip on Welles part to have her there commenting on the behaviour of the "Minafers" (nice one, Higgy,) but it could well have been Fanny, since Isabel wasn't married to Wilbur yet, and even if it wasn't, no one in the audience would notice that she's the one playing Fanny later on. The converse works just as well too: Lindsay Anderson's O Lucky Man has several actors in multiple roles - and even though you know it's the same actors again, it doesn't detract from anything; it adds a neat layer.

[Roger Ryan]

Agnes Moorhead is most definitely playing "Fanny" in the "town chorus" scene in "Ambersons". Note that she's talking with Mrs. Johnson who lives across the street from the Ambersons (it's her house we see in the opening montage; she's the one who flags down the streetcar from the window). Fanny will later confide in Johnson her concern about Eugene & Isabel's romance, which results in George confronting Johnson in her home. By showing Fanny and Mrs. Johnson together near the film's beginning Welles establishes a relationship between the two women prior to Isabel marrying Fanny's brother Wilbur. Isabel, incidentally, is apparently unaware of Fanny's friendship with Johnson since in the first veranda scene (cut from the studio release), Johnson is ridiculed by Isabel for being a "silly, fat" snoop. I can only imagine that Moorhead as Fanny would have shown some kind of reaction to this line in the footage. Fanny is always the outsider in the story, so it is far from a mistake for Welles to show her as one of the townspeople before she joins the ranks of the Ambersons.

[David N]

I remember that remark on Ambersons by Higham and thinking the same thing. I still found what he had to say about Kane and Welles far more useful than anything Pauline Kael offers in the Citizen Kane Book. Kael writes that "rosebud" is nothing more than a gimmick and some lame freudian nonsense. Roger Ebert says that it explains nothing. I think it explains a hell of a lot. I can't think of too many things more profound than the motivations behind a man's life. THat sled is loaded with meaning. If there's a gimmick in Kane, I think it's the reason mama Kane sends junior off with Thatcher: because daddy "thrashes" him a little too often.