All great films are overrated. That's what makes them so great.

Rating: 10/10 (15 March 2006)

This is a great film and was recognized for that immediately. The National Board of Review named it Best Picture for 1941, the New York Film Critics Circle named it Best Picture for 1941 and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences nominated it for nine Acadeny Awards for 1941 including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Sound, Best Art Direction and Best Music Score. It won it's only Oscar for Best Screenplay for Orson Welles and Herman J. Mankiewicz. 26 year old Orson Welles in his feature film debut produces, writes, directs and stars in Citizen Kane, a story of a young boy whose family gives him up to be the son of a wealthy man who will guarantee a privileged life and education for the boy. He grows up to lead a newspaper empire and become the world's most wealthiest man and political pawnbroker. Welles had captivated the nation with his radio play adaptation of another Welles in H.G. Welles War of the worlds in 1938. He took his Mercury Theater Players and made the leap from radio to film and produced an epic film his first time out. He was fortunate to get some smart help to bring his vision to reality. First, with veteran screen writer Mankiewicz helped to write a story for film instead of radio. Second, with veteran Cinematographer Gregg Toland who had photographed such films as Queen Kelly, The Westerner, Kidnapped, Wuthering Heights, Intermeazzo and the Grapes of Wrath among his many films and after Kane would go on to do The Outlaw, The Best Years of Our Lives and The Bishops Wife before he died of a heart attack at the age of 44. Toland had worked with Directors Erich Von Stroheim, Mervyn Le Roy, Howard Hawks, King Vidor John Ford, and William Wyler and brought the skill to put Welles' imagination on the screen. Third, Orson Welles found a young film editor who had edited The Hunchback of Notre Dame and My Favorite Wife named Robert Wise who would go on to be an accomplished director himself with such films as The Day the Earth Stood Still, West Side Story, The sound of Music, The Haunting, The sand Pebbles and The Andromeda Strain. Fourth, Welles was entrusted with and got the best out of RKO veterans Art Director Van Nest Polglase, Set Director Darrell Silvera and costume designer Edward Stevenson to work on what would be the most important film of their careers. Fifth, Welles was fortunate to have a young composer named Bernarad Herrmann score his film. Herrmann would go on to be a favorite of Alfred Hitchcock scoring his films Pycho, The Birds, North by Northwest and Vertigo and would score films and television for directors all the way to Taxi Driver. Next, Orson Welles had fortune with RKO Sound Supervisor John Aalberg overseeing the sound for Citizen Kane and finally Welles was surrounded by a great cast in Joseph Cotten, Agnes Moorehead, Ruth Warrick and Everette Sloane among others. Vision, ambition, inspiration, skill, talent and a little luck came together for Welles who was teamed with a lot of talent that collectively wanted it to come together. It results in a 10 out of 10.