Citizen Welles Raises Kane

Lolly Parsons nearly fell out of her chair. On the preview screen before her, Orson Welles, the bearded boy, was playing Citizen Kane, a corrupt newspaper publisher, in a way that reminded Cinecolumnist Parsons irresistibly of her boss--William Randolph Hearst. The seed of suspicion had been deftly implanted in the Parsons mind a week before. She had not been included among Hollywood's journalistic elite (her rival Hedda Hopper, Timesman Douglas Churchill, Look's Jim Crow) who saw the initial preview of R. K. O.'s & Orson Welles's Citizen Kane. Now, at her own insistence, she was having a special showing. With her she had brought her chauffeur and two lawyers.

The picture, Orson Welles's first movie (secret script by Orson Welles, who changed it so often on the set that even the actors could not remember the lines), is not, he claims, about William Randolph Hearst. Nevertheless, Lolly Parsons thought she detected some glaring similarities between the picture's plot and the career of her boss. It was a picture lush with the leggy beauty of Publisher Kane's teeming love life, grotesque with his wholesale grabs of Europe's artistic offscourings, memorable for the impressionistic camera work of Photographer Gregg Toland (The Grapes of Wrath, The Long Voyage Home). It was not a picture to be disregarded or forgotten. But it was distinctly non-Hollywood. Whether Welles and R. K. O. had a surebox-office bust or a sensation that would stir up more fun in the next six weeks than Russell Bird well stirred up for Gone With the Wind, depended in great measure on how wrathfully Columnist Parsons got up from her seat.

She rose like a geyser. As the lights came on, Miss Parsons and lawyers steamed out. Only the chauffeur had enjoyed the picture.

First result was that no more mention of R. K. O. pictures appeared in Hearst papers in Baltimore, Manhattan, Los Angeles--a free publicity break itself worth several thousand dollars. Next, excited Lolly Parsons phoned R. K. O. Headman Schaefer in Manhattan, appealed to him to stop Citizen Kane. Headman Schaefer could not recall exactly what was in the picture, said he would take another look soon; if there should prove to be anything offensive to Citizen Hearst, Citizen Kane might not be released. Gallantly Orson Welles declared that, rather than see his great friend, George Schaefer, in Dutch, he would see Citizen Kane die unopened in a can.

Soon R. K. O. officials decided to release the picture in February anyway. Of course, there was the question of a libel action. Would Publisher Hearst sue? Valhallan silence gripped the crags of San Simeon. For Publisher Hearst's dilemma, if he insisted on publicly pointing out the similarities between himself and Citizen Kane, was acute. In any case, R. K. O. lawyers decided that Hearst had no case. More probably, it was rumored, Director Welles would give Publisher Hearst a private preview, make necessary adjustments. Seldom in Hollywood history had there been such a prospective buildup. Wiseacres shook their heads in wonder. Was it inspiration or luck? Orson Welles might not be the Junius Brutus Booth of his generation, but some thought he had a jumbo streak of the old Barnum.

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