CITIZEN KANE MINUTE #2 – Support, Then Denounce
The greatest film of all time, five minutes at a time.
- Minutes 05:00-10:00
- Special Guest: Podcaster Gerry Green
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Great episode guys!
As you were discussing the Kane/Hitler sequence in the opening newsreel, I thought there was one thing I might add. I have no evidence for this, but I always assumed that Kane meeting Hitler was a reference to an actual historical event:
In July 1938, before the outbreak of war, the German consul at Cleveland gave Ford, on his 75th birthday, the award of the Grand Cross of the German Eagle, the highest medal Nazi Germany could bestow on a foreigner. You can read a full account in this 1998 story from the Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/nov98/nazicars30.htm
It’s well documented that Ford (like most Americans of the era) held anti-Semitic views. In 1919, Ford became a newspaper publisher of The Dearborn Independent in Michigan.
Ford’s newspaper reached a circulation of 900,000 by 1925, second only to the New York Daily News, largely due to a quota system for promotion imposed on Ford dealers. Lawsuits regarding anti-Semitic material published in the paper caused Ford to close it, and the last issue was published in December 1927. The publication’s title was derived from the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, Michigan.
Wow! I never thought you’d do an episode of Fade Out for actors as obscure as Peter Allen and Thomas A. Curran, but here it is! It’s certainly convenient you were able to make it a twofer.
Wait, this isn’t an episode of Fade Out? What is it, then?
Oh, right. That makes more sense.
Let me start again.
Rob, I still haven’t seen “the greatest film of all tiiiiiiiiiime” (said in Muhammad Ali’s voice and prosody). But this podcast is fun, so you’re selling it. And please have Gerry back. He’s funny.
Top second episode, lovely to hear Gerry. I’d have been wary of being guest on this episode, what with all the newsreel stuff. It’s all incredibly well done, technically, but it’s my least favourite part of the film, I always find myself wanting it to be over so we can see some regular acting. I much prefer a straightforward linear narrative, even though, as pointed out, it sets up the rest of the film, providing a starting point from which to approach the true/‘true’ story of Charles Foster Kane.
I can’t believe Orson Welles ripped off the newsreel opening of JSA: World War II !