Charles Foster Kane is a newspaper tycoon who takes the publishing world by storm, dabbles in politics, mucks up his love life and dies a lonely old man. Put like that, Citizen Kane doesn't sound like a contender for the greatest movie ever made. But Orson Welles tells Kane's story so skilfully and with such command of the cinematic medium that many critics believe his masterpiece has never been equalled.

A man of the times
Orson Welles was only 25 when he made Citizen Kane in 1940. He'd never made a movie before, although he was a highly respected theatre and radio actor-producer. Two years earlier, he had scared America witless with his radio production of H.G. Wells's The War of the Worlds: much was expected of this young talent. So much so, that he was given complete artistic freedom by RKO Radio Pictures to make any film he wished. The result was Citizen Kane. Although the movie could not have been made without the input of several highly talented collaborators, it was Welles who drew the whole project together and Welles who had the vision to see it through. Citizen Kane was his film.

A legend comes to life
There's little doubt that Kane's character was loosely based on media mogul William Randolph Hearst, who had dominated corporate America for decades. Like Kane, Hearst had a complex love life. Like Kane, Hearst built himself a sprawling palace and became an increasingly remote figure in old age. Hearst loathed Citizen Kane and refused to advertise the film in his newspapers. He even tried to scupper the movie's release.

An American story
The foundation of Citizen Kane's success was its groundbreaking script, co-written by Welles and Herman J. Mankiewicz. As the film opens, Kane is dying a lonely death, shut up from the world in his castle, Xanadu. A ten-minute newsreel follows, giving us a snapshot of the salient moments in Kane's public life. But it's not enough for the newsreel's producer, so he assigns a reporter to find out what really made the great man tick. Above all, he wants to know why Kane's last word was "rosebud". We follow the reporter as he interviews the key figures in Kane's life. The action unfolds in a series of flashbacks that gradually reveal Kane as he appeared to those closest to him. We do finally learn the significance of Kane's last word. But this film is all about one man's journey through life, not his destination. In this respect, Citizen Kane was a radical departure from the Hollywood norm.

A fresh eye
Citizen Kane is visually stunning. Every component of every lustrous black and white frame is significant. Cinematographer Gregg Toland had perfected a technique known as deep focus and used it to great effect in Citizen Kane. Toland's deep focus style meant that everything in the frame, from the foreground to the background, was in focus. To Welles, this offered an unmissable artistic opportunity. He used his theatre skills to move his actors through Toland's frame to dazzling effect. He also rejected the standard Hollywood formula of wide-shot, medium-shot and close-up. Instead, he used long tracking shots to bring us closer to the characters.

A merry band of players
Welles cast the principal parts in Citizen Kane from his existing company of radio and stage actors. Although largely unknown in Hollywood, they turned in compelling performances and many of them went on to forge successful careers in cinema. Welles as Kane pulls off an astoundingly powerful and complex performance but he is surrounded by equally strong and convincing actors. Joseph Cotten and Everett Sloane as Kane's long-time friends are particularly effective. So too is Agnes Moorhead as Kane's rather scary mother. Dorothy Comingore contributes a great turn as Kane's vulnerable second wife, steadily disintegrating as she's propelled into an unwanted career as an opera singer by a power-crazed Kane. It's a great ensemble performance but at its heart is Welles. Kane may have been based on Hearst but, in essence, he is Orson Welles himself.

Did you know?

The film's editor, Robert Wise, went on to direct West Side Story and The Sound of Music.

Agnes Moorhead became famous in the 1960s as Endora, Samantha's troublesome mother in Bewitched.

Alan Ladd has a small part in the film as a reporter.

A then-unknown Nat "King" Cole plays a pianist in the "El Rancho" scene.

Welles injured his ankle during shooting and had to play some scenes wearing leg supports.