Much of the Inquirer's bad review of Susan Alexander's opera debut (bylined "Jed Leland" but, in the film, largely written by Kane himself) can be read in the DVD release at 01:32:42, with use of freeze-frame and zoom. It reads: "Miss Susan Alexander, a pretty but hopelessly incompetent amateur, last night opened the new Chicago Opera House in a performance of 'Salammbo.'" "Her singing, happily, is no concern of this department. Of her acting, it is absolutely impossible to say anything except that it represents, in the opinion of this reviewer, a new low. The performance, as a whole, was weak and incomprehensible." "While it is true that a wealth of training has been expended on the voice of Miss Alexander, the result has been pathetitc [sic] in the extreme, inasmuch as she lacks tonal purity, volume and the nuances of enunciation so important for the grand opera diva. "LACKS STAGE PRESENCE "Another grave fault in her performance was lack of stage pres- ... " (The rest of the column cannot be seen.)
Much of the music used in the phony newsreel is stock music from RKO's film Five Came Back.
On the night the movie opened in San Francisco, Welles found himself alone with William Randolph Hearst in an elevator at the city's Fairmont Hotel. Aware that his father and Hearst were friends, Welles extended an invitation to the magnate to attend the premiere of Citizen Kane. Hearst disregarded the offer and as Hearst was about to exit the elevator at his floor, Welles remarked, "Charles Foster Kane would have accepted."
One line by Kane, "Don't believe everything you hear on the radio," might be construed as a sly wink from Orson Welles to those who panicked upon hearing his radio broadcast of "War of the Worlds."
One subplot discarded from the final film concerned Susan Alexander Kane having an affair that Mr. Kane discovers. There were scenes written and story boards designed for this sequence.
Principal photography which began in late June 1940, finished just a few days over schedule on October 23. The movie was ready for release in February 1941. The controversy surrounding the film delayed its opening until 1 May 1941.
Screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz wrote the balance of the screenplay for this film from a hospital bed recovering from illness.
Susan's singing voice was provided by a professional opera singer who, under Orson Welles' direction, sang outside of her vocal range. She agreed to having her voice used this way on the condition that her identity never be revealed, fearing it would harm her career. She was Jean Forward of the San Francisco Opera.
The "newsreel" that opens the film is a perfect skewering of Henry Luce's 'Time Magazine' style of prose as used in 1940. 'Time' obituaries often began, "Death, as it must to all men, came last week to . . ." 'The New Yorker' published a parody in 1936, before "Kane": "Certainly to be taken with seriousness is Luce at thirty-eight, his fellowman already informed up to his ears, the shadow of his enterprises long across the land, his future plans impossible to imagine, staggering to contemplate. Where it will all end, knows God!"
The American Film Institute's poll ranked the film #1 greatest American movie of all time in 1998, and again on the anniversary list from 2007.
The audience that watches Kane make his speech is, in fact, a still photo. To give the illusion of movement, hundreds of holes were pricked in with a pin, and lights moved about behind it.
The camera looks up at Charles Foster Kane and his best friend Jedediah Leland and down at weaker characters like Susan Alexander Kane. This was a technique that Orson Welles borrowed from John Ford who had used it two years previously on Stagecoach. Welles privately watched Stagecoach about 40 times while making this film.
The character Jedediah Leland is based on celebrated newspaper columnist Ashton Stevens, drama critic for the San Francisco Examiner and later of the Chicago Herald-American, noted interviewer to the stars and man-about-town. His brother, actor Landers Stevens, appears uncredited in the film as an investigator. Ashton was the uncle of director George Stevens, Landers' son.
The character of Mr. Bernstein was named after Orson Welles's guardian Dr. Maurice Bernstein, a Kenosha (WI) surgeon who became close to the Welles after having treated Orson Welles' grandmother in her final illness.
The credited cast was entirely from the Mercury Theatre troupe, which Orson Welles founded when he was 21 years old. The Mercury Theatre did radio dramatizations of such works as "Les Miserables", "A Tale of Two Cities", "Treasure Island", "The 39 Steps", "Abraham Lincoln", "The Count of Monte Cristo' and, most famously, "The War of the Worlds".
The favorite film of "Peanuts" cartoonist Charles M. Schulz. He incorporated many references to it in his strips over the years. In 1974 Schultz ruined the movie for anyone who hadn't seen it yet. In a Sunday Comics edition of Peanuts, Linus is watching TV and Lucy asks what he's watching. Linus says "Citizen Kane" and Lucy replies "Rosebud was his sled."
The film showcased a technique called "universal focus." To get the image of Kane and the poster picture during the speech sequence, short lenses were used. At the same time, the key light (the main lights) were gradually increased to get both images sharp and clear.
The ice sculptures at the Inquirer party behind Mr. Bernstein are caricatures of Bernstein and Leland. The placards under them read ["Broadway Jed" Leland] and ["Mr. (Big Business) Bernstein"]. The "Broadway Jed" is certainly due to Leland being the newspaper's drama critic, and "Mr. Big Business" could be due to Bernstein being something of a manager, but no clue is given as to why "(Big Business)" appears in parentheses.
The lengthy scene where the older Jedediah Leland is interviewed at the old folks' home was Joseph Cotten's very first scene in front of a Hollywood camera. Orson Welles' broken ankle had forced the rescheduling of this scene, which originally was supposed to be shot towards the end of the film, so Cotten hadn't gotten around to learning his lines yet. Consequently he was supposed to do the scene from cue cards but because his old-age make-up included contact lenses dipped in milk and a wig that wouldn't stay on (hence the sun visor) Cotten took a couple of hours out to learn the lines properly.
The movie's line "Old age... it's the only disease, Mr. Thompson, that you don't look forward to being cured of." was voted as the #90 of "The 100 Greatest Movie Lines" by Premiere in 2007.