for
Citizen Kane (1941)
Move to Hollywood Orson Welles's notoriety following "The War of the Worlds" broadcast earned him Hollywood's interest, and
RKO studio head
George J. Schaefer's unusual contract. Welles made a deal with Schaefer on July 21, 1939, to produce, direct, write, and act in three feature films. (The number of films was later changed - see below.) The studio had to approve the story and the budget if it exceeded $500,000. Welles was allowed to develop the story without interference, cast his own actors and crew members, and have the privilege of final cut, unheard of at the time for a first-time director. (Welles later claimed that nobody in Hollywood had enjoyed this level of artistic freedom since
Erich von Stroheim in the early 1920s.) Additionally, as part of his contract, he set up a "Mercury Unit" at RKO; containing most of the actors from the Mercury's theatre and radio productions, as well as numerous technicians, (such as composer
Bernard Herrmann), who were brought in from New York. Few of them had any film experience. Welles spent the first five months of his RKO contract learning the basics of making films, and trying to get several projects going with no success.
The Hollywood Reporter said, "They are laying bets over on the RKO lot that the Orson Welles deal will end up without Orson ever doing a picture there." First, Welles tried to adapt
Heart of Darkness, but there was concern over the idea to depict it entirely with point of view shots, as Welles was unable to come up with an acceptable budget. Welles then considered adapting
Cecil Day-Lewis' novel
The Smiler with the Knife, but realized that this relatively straightforward pulp thriller was unlikely to make much impact for his film debut. He concluded that to challenge himself with a new medium, he had to write an original story.
Citizen Kane (1941) As Welles decided on an original
screenplay for his first film, he settled on a treatment he wrote, entitled
American. In its first draft, it was only partially based on
William Randolph Hearst, and also incorporated aspects of other tycoons such as
Howard Hughes. However,
American was heavily overlength, and Welles soon realized he would need an experienced co-writer to help redraft it—preferably one with experience of working with tycoons. In 1940, screenwriter
Herman J. Mankiewicz was a former Hearst journalist recuperating from a car accident, and was in between jobs. He had originally been hired by Welles to work on
The Campbell Playhouse radio program and was available to work on the screenplay for Welles's film. The writer had only received two screenplay credits between 1935 and his work on
Citizen Kane and needed the job, his reputation having plummeted after he descended into alcoholism in the late 1930s. In the 1970s and 1980s, there was a dispute amongst historians regarding whose idea it was to use
William Randolph Hearst as the basis for Charles Foster Kane. For some time, Mankiewicz had wanted to write a screenplay about a public figure, perhaps a gangster, whose story would be told by the people that knew him. Welles claimed it was his idea to write about Hearst, while film critic
Pauline Kael (in her widely publicised 1971 essay "
Raising Kane") and Welles's former business partner John Houseman claim that it was Mankiewicz's idea. Kael further claimed that Welles had written nothing of the original script, and did not deserve a co-writer credit. However, in 1985, film historian Robert Carringer showed that Kael had only reached her conclusion by comparing the first and last drafts of the
Citizen Kane script, whereas Carringer examined every intermediate draft by Mankiewicz and Welles, and concluded that a co-writer credit was justified, with each man writing between 40% and 60% of the script. He additionally concluded that Houseman's claims to have contributed to the script were largely unfounded. Mankiewicz had already written an unperformed play entitled,
The Tree Will Grow about
John Dillinger. Welles liked the idea of multiple viewpoints but was not interested in playing Dillinger. Mankiewicz and Welles talked about picking someone else to use a model. They hit on the idea of using Hearst as their central character. Mankiewicz had frequented Hearst's parties until his alcoholism got him barred. The writer resented this and became obsessed with Hearst and
Marion Davies. Hearst had great influence and the power to retaliate within Hollywood so Welles had Mankiewicz work on the script outside of the city. Because of the writer's drinking problem, Houseman went along to provide assistance and make sure that he stayed focused. Welles also sought inspiration from Howard Hughes and
Samuel Insull (who built an opera house for his girlfriend). Although Mankiewicz and Houseman got on well with Welles, they incorporated some of his traits into Kane, such as his temper. During production,
Citizen Kane was referred to as "RKO 281". Filming took place between June 29, 1940, and October 23, 1940, in what is now Stage 19 on the
Paramount Pictures lot in Hollywood, and came in under schedule. Welles prevented studio executives of RKO from visiting the set. He understood their desire to control projects and he knew they were expecting him to do an exciting film that would correspond to his "The War of the Worlds" radio broadcast. Welles's RKO contract had given him complete control over the production of the film when he signed on with the studio, something that he never again was allowed to exercise when making motion pictures. According to an RKO cost sheet from May 1942, the film cost $839,727 compared to an estimated budget of $723,800. When the film was released, pressure from William Randolph Hearst led to many cinemas refusing to screen it, and it was screened in so few places that RKO made a substantial loss on the film on its original release. As a consequence of this, Welles's RKO contract was renegotiated, and he lost the right to control a film's final cut—something which would have major consequences for his next film,
The Magnificent Ambersons. The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) Welles's follow-up to
Citizen Kane was an adaptation of
Booth Tarkington's novel
The Magnificent Ambersons, a childhood favorite of his which he had already adapted for the radio. It portrayed the decline and fall of a proud Midwestern American family of the 19th century, as the motor car in the 20th century makes them obsolete. Welles's relations with RKO grew strained during the making of this film. His stock had fallen considerably after
Kane had commercially flopped. Whereas studio head George Schaefer had given Welles
carte blanche over
Kane, he closely supervised
Ambersons, sensing that his own position was in danger (which indeed it was - Schaefer was fired as head of RKO shortly after
Ambersons was completed, and a commonly-attributed reason was for his having hired Welles with such a generous contract). RKO itself was in serious financial trouble, running a deficit. Welles himself considered his original cut of
The Magnificent Ambersons to have been one of his finest films - "it was a much better picture than
Kane". However, RKO panicked over a lukewarm preview screening in
Pomona, California, when the film ran second in a double-bill with a romantic comedy. Around 55% of the audience strongly disliked the film (although the surviving audience feedback cards show that the remaining minority gave fulsome praise, using words such as "masterpiece" and "cinematic art"). Welles was in Brazil filming ''It's All True'' (see below), so the studio decided to trim over 40 minutes of the film's two-hour running time. The first half of the film, portraying the happy times of the Ambersons in the 19th century, was largely unaffected. However, the vast majority of the second half of the film, portraying the Ambersons' fall from grace, was largely discarded as too depressing. Actors were drafted in for reshoots by other directors, who shot new scenes, including an upbeat, optimistic ending out of key with the rest of the film. The discarded 40 minutes of scenes by Welles were burned, and detailed, telegraphed instructions from him suggesting further compromises to save the film were thrown away, unread. This truncated version of
The Magnificent Ambersons had a limited released in two Los Angeles cinemas in July 1942, where it did indifferently, and like
Citizen Kane, the film lost RKO hundreds of thousands of dollars. Later in 1942, George Schaefer was dismissed as studio head. One of the first changes initiated by his successor, Charles Koerner, was to fire Welles from RKO, and his entire Mercury unit was removed from the studio and closed down.
Journey into Fear (1943) and ''It's All True'' (1942-1993) Welles's RKO contract was renegotiated after the commercial failure of
Citizen Kane. Instead of delivering three major "A-pictures" for the studio, Welles would instead deliver two, and would compensate for the high costs of
Citizen Kane by delivering two further films with lower budgets. One of these was the straightforward espionage thriller
Journey into Fear, based on a novel by
Eric Ambler. Welles wrote and produced the film, but opted not to be the main director, not least as the film was on a tight schedule, filming back-to-back with
The Magnificent Ambersons. The project appealed to RKO, especially as it seemed to be a low-risk, low-budget film. The other project was first suggested by
David Rockefeller, and since Welles was qualified as medically unfit for war service, it was suggested he could render service to the war effort by making a film to encourage Pan-American sentiment, since the US State Department was worried about fascist sympathies in some Latin American countries. The film's concept was loosely defined as an anthology of stories about different Americans being united against fascism, and it was hoped that a Pan-American song-and-dance number could be recorded. In February 1942, Brazil's carnival season was rapidly approaching, so it was decided to quickly send Welles over with technicolour cameras to film the carnival, and he could decide how to use the film later. Studio director
Norman Foster was heavily involved in both projects. Officially, he was the sole director of
Journey into Fear. However, studio documentation and photographs show Welles directing that film (often in costume for his supporting role as "Colonel Haki"), and fuelled by amphetamines, he was directing
Ambersons in the day and
Journey at night. He finished his
Journey scenes in the small hours of the morning he left for Brazil, and Foster directed the rest of the film to Welles's specific instructions. RKO found
Journey into Fear too eccentric in its original form, and kept the film for a year before releasing it in 1943, by which time they had cut over twenty minutes. As with
Ambersons, the excised footage was burned. While Welles was in Brazil, he sent Foster to Mexico to direct one of the sequences of ''It's All True
(based on the short story "My Friend Bonito", about a boy and his donkey), while he began to develop the rest of the film. As well as working his carnival footage into a sequence on the history of Samba, he filmed a sequence called "Four raftmen", about an epic sea voyage undertaken by Jangedeiros'' fishermen to seek justice from Brazil's president. RKO rapidly turned against Welles and the ''It's All True
project. Film historian Catherine Benamou has argued, based on extensive work in the RKO archives, that racism was a major underlying factor, and that RKO was alarmed that Welles was choosing to make non-white Americans the heroes of his story. As well as ignoring his instructions while the studio recut Ambersons
and Journey'', they began issuing press releases attacking him for profligacy with studio funds, and accusing him of wasting his time in Brazil by attending lavish parties and drinking into the small hours (which he did - but fortified by amphetamines, he would also be the first to report for filming at 6am). When a filming accident resulted in one actor drowning, RKO cited this as an example of Welles's irresponsibility. Finally, they ordered him to abandon the film. Not wishing to leave, Welles remained in Brazil with a skeleton crew which he funded himself, but eventually had to return when he ran out of film and RKO refused to send him any more. After Welles was sacked in 1942, RKO had no plans for the ''It's All True
footage. Some of it was dumped in the Pacific Ocean. Welles tried to buy back the negative, convinced he could fashion It's All True'' into a commercially successful film about samba, and he wrote the studio an "IOU" note for it, but when he could not afford the first installment on payments, the footage reverted to the studio. The footage was long presumed lost (though some of it was found again in 1985 and incorporated into a partial restoration in 1993), and Welles was unable to find a directing job for over three years, and even then, only for
a formulaic low-budget thriller. In the meantime, the Mercury Theatre had disbanded for good.
Later cinema The Mercury Theatre production team of John Houseman and Orson Welles separated during the making of
Citizen Kane, but as the RKO Mercury unit retained its name until its removal from the studio in 1942. Since the Mercury Theatre name was not trademarked, Welles continued to use it for some of his subsequent projects.
Mercury Theatre actors in Welles's films Welles cast a number of regular Mercury Theatre actors in his later films. Unless otherwise noted, information in this table is taken from
Orson Welles at Work (2008) by Jean-Pierre Berthomé and Francois Thomas. ==Publishing and recording==