Raising Kane
Kael celebrated screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz, first-credited co-author of the screenplay, and questioned the contributions of Orson Welles, who co-wrote, produced and directed the film, and performed the lead role.
[5]: 236–237 As the film neared release, however, Mankiewicz began threatening Welles to get credit for the film—including threats to place full-page ads in trade papers and to get his friend Ben Hecht to write an exposé for The Saturday Evening Post.
[3]: 494 [10] Kael initially declined an offer from Bantam Books to write an introductory essay for a paperback edition of the Citizen Kane script, but later accepted.
[11]: 155 One of the contract provisions permitted separate publication of the essay in a magazine; earlier in 1968 Kael had been named one of two regular film critics for The New Yorker.
[15]: 30 Kael approached Suber in mid-1969 and offered him the chance to write a separate essay that would appear with hers in The Citizen Kane Book, and split the money.
"The only research materials in her personal archive, housed at Indiana University's Lilly Library, are copies of Howard Suber's interviews.
[13]: 206–207 New York Times reviewer Mordecai Richler praised Kael for "cutting Orson Welles down to size, denying his needlessly grandiose claim to having been solely responsible for everything that went into Kane, including the script and photography.
"[19][c][20] "Orson was vigorously defended," wrote biographer Barton Whaley, "but in less prominently placed articles; so, again, the damage was immense and permanent.
[15]: 30 Other rebuttals included articles by Sarris,[24] Joseph McBride[25] and Jonathan Rosenbaum,[22] interviews with George Coulouris and Bernard Herrmann that appeared in Sight & Sound,[26] a definitive study of the scripts by Robert L. Carringer[27][2] and remarks in Welles biographies by Barbara Leaming[6]: 203–204 and Frank Brady.
[3]: 494–501 "The major focus of Kael's essay is its defense and celebration of screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz as the principal, neglected creative force behind Kane," Rosenbaum wrote.
"[10]: 38 In "The Kane Mutiny", Bogdanovich/Welles discloses that Kael did not interview Katherine Trosper, who worked as Welles's secretary from the script's rough draft through the completion of the film.
When Bogdanovich repeated Kael's assertion that Mankiewicz was the sole author of the script, Trosper replied, "Then I'd like to know, what was all that stuff I was always typing for Mr.
Kael likewise did not interview associate producer Richard Baer, who stated that he himself was "in the room and saw" Welles writing important parts of the script.
[2]: 17 [h] Kael wrote that Mankiewicz "had ample proof of his authorship, and he took his evidence to the Screen Writers Guild and raised so much hell that Welles was forced to split the credit and take second place in the listing.
"[10]: 45 Lederer told Bogdanovich that Kael never bothered to check with him about the facts, that he did not give Davies the script Mankiewicz loaned him: "I gave it back to him.
[6]: 202 Kael wrote that the production could not afford the fee to perform the opera called for in the script, Jules Massenet's Thaïs—a work written for Sibyl Sanderson, one of Hearst's mistresses—so composer Bernard Herrmann had to write something instead.
"[29] Kael also related an anecdote from Nunnally Johnson, who said that during the filming of Citizen Kane Mankiewicz told him that Welles offered him, through a third party, a $10,000 bribe to relinquish screen credit.
[10]: 49–50 The unsubstantiated claim became part of the record,[3]: 497 repeated as fact in a book by film historian Otto Friedrich[30]: 91–92 and a documentary by Barry Norman.
"[11]: 166 Decades after the controversy over the essay, Woody Allen told Bogdanovich that he had been with Kael immediately after she finished reading "The Kane Mutiny" in Esquire.
[33][34] Film historian Richard B. Jewell, chronicler of RKO Pictures, concluded that Welles deserved his credit as the screenplay's co-author and that Kael's arguments were "one-sided and unsupported by the facts.
"'Raising Kane' was omitted from the Library of America volume for reasons of space … but Kellow's account suggests it should have been eliminated in any event for its improprieties.
