By ROBERT KROLL
While there are many differences in Orson Welles’ proposal for a 1950s television adaptation of Citizen Kane, perhaps what is most surprising is how much it would have stayed true to his landmark 1941 movie.
Acquired by Indiana University’s Lilly Library in October 2015, the proposal was sold at auction by Welles collector Keith Burns, a former NBC News editor and son-in-law of RKO Pictures assistant director Samuel Ruman, (Burns’ impressive trove included items given to him by Welles and Ruman, as well as collectibles he purchased from “directors and producers who fell on hard times in the 1970s.”)
The 62-page script Citizen Kane proposal, with many pages containing Welles’ handwritten annotations, is nearly a straight transcript of the 1941 RKO Pictures release, as opposed to a total rewrite of the original Welles-Herman Mankiewicz screenplay.
While the proposal itself is undated, there are two clippings advertising Citizen Kane from the October 19, 1956 Minnesota Daily Tribune glued to the inside of the hardcover. (In 1956, Citizen Kane was re-released to movie theaters and Welles wrote and directed the unsold TV pilot Fountain of Youth for Desilu.)
A list of characters opens up the proposal, but there are no suggested actors cast for the roles. There are no breaks for episodes or commercials. Edits and montages are described exactly as they are in the original film. With many original stylistic choices intact, it is unlikely this version of Citizen Kane could have been presented as a live production.
The proposal’s strict adherence to the original film also means that there are no scenes cut and no “new” scenes added.
Many scenes are described exactly as they are seen in the film, such as the opening on the “No Trespassing” sign at Xanadu and the snow falling on the Rosebud sled after Kane leaves Colorado with Thatcher. The News on the March sequence is described so meticulously that it could be recreated with all new material and still look the same in the 1950s as it did in 1941.
One montage added in the proposal would have been a flurry of Kane speeches in between Kane watching Susan Alexander perform and Leland’s speech on the street.
A rather shocking change is the description of Jim Kane’s anger toward his son. While the original film shows Jim Kane (Harry Shannon) swinging a hand at young Charles Kane, the proposal script makes it clear that Jim is supposed to strike young Charles.
One of the major features of the proposal is the fidelity to original dialogue delivery. Dialogue is designed to match the performance in the original Citizen Kane. Words are underlined Kane’s speech to Thatcher about the Inquirer losing a million dollars a year to match the words Welles stressed. The line is written as “I expect to lose a million dollars this year. I expect to lose a million dollars next year.” Susan Alexander’s dialogue is accented to match Dorothy Comingore’s delivery. In contrast, there is no such emphasis in the 3rd Revised Final Shooting Script (July 16, 1940), also housed in the same box as the TV proposal at the Lilly Library.
Welles notes are everywhere in the proposal, even though they are often hard to read. The previously mentioned snowfall scene in its uncorrected form describes the snow as falling on “…Rosebud, Charles’ sled…” Welles corrected the script, scribbling over “Rosebud,” thereby making sure that the key word isn’t associated with the sled too early on.
Ultimately, the fidelity to the original script may have been Welles’ way to ensure that a TV version of Citizen Kane could be made even without him. The fidelity to original shots, montages, and dialogue ensure that Welles’ hand is still in the making of the TV Citizen Kane, even if he may not have been involved in its production.
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Robert Kroll is an English professor at St. Clair County Community College in Michigan. He has written about the 2016 Traverse City Film Festival for Wellesnet and is currently working on a book about Orson Welles’ commercials.
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