by Allan Fish
(USA 1941 119m) DVD1/2
A declaration of principles
p/d Orson Welles w Herman J.Mankiewicz, Orson Welles ph Gregg Toland ed Robert Wise m Bernard Herrmann art Van Nest Polglase, Perry Ferguson cos Edward Stevenson spc Vernon L.Walker sound James G.Stewart
Orson Welles (Charles Foster Kane), Joseph Cotten (Jedediah Leland), Dorothy Comingore (Susan Alexander), Everett Sloane (Mr Bernstein), Ray Collins (Boss Jim W.Gettys), Paul Stewart (Raymond), Ruth Warrick (Emily Norton), Erskine Sanford (Herbert Carter), Agnes Moorehead (Mrs Kane), Harry Shannon (Mr Kane), George Coulouris (Walter Parks Thatcher), William Alland (Jerry Thompson), Fortunio Bonanova (Matiste), Philip Van Zandt (Mr Rawlston), Buddy Swann (Kane aged 8), Sonny Bupp (Kane III), Gus Schilling (Head Waiter), Philip Van Zandt (Mr Rawlston), Georgia Backus (Miss Anderson), Richard Barr (Hillman), Joan Blair (Georgia), Al Eben (Mike), Benny Rubin (Smather), Frances Neal (Ethel), Alan Ladd, Arthur O’Connell,
What can I say about Kane that hasn’t been said by a thousand critics and commentators before me? One feels almost in danger of inflicting paralysis by analysis. Often referred to as the greatest film ever made, it’s certainly a worthy contender to that most arbitrary of titles, but there is so much talk these days about the drama behind the film’s making, both in documentary or dramatic re-enactments such as the cable TV movie RKO 281, that the film itself is often overlooked. Now that it has, thanks to digital technology, been released pristinely to DVD it can be truly seen and appreciated as the masterpiece of the old Hollywood, typically rejected by its peers at the academy for How Green Was My Valley, as whopping an insulting oversight as has been offered before or since. (more…)