April 30, 2007
Citizen Kane and Prince Charles Posted by John Steele Gordon at 05:35 PM EST First, please let me correct what might be only a miswording in Alexander Burns’s post. Alexander Burns wrote, “I suppose, by Bragg’s preferences, the producers of Citizen Kane should be liable to the estate of William Randolph Hearst for possible distortions of the man’s character. Maybe Bragg meant, ‘a living historical figure,’ but, in any case, I can’t imagine how unbearably dry such a version of popular culture would be. I’m sure that I’m grateful to Michael Kitchen for offering an enjoyable alternative.” William Randolph Hearst was, of course, very much alive when Citizen Kane opened in 1941 and lived for more than a decade more. As far as I know, he didn’t sue, but I imagine his newspapers did their best to trash the movie, unavailingly to be sure, as it is, as fiction, an unalloyed masterpiece. Who was really wronged by the movie, of course, was his mistress, Marion Davies. She was intelligent and a gifted comedic actress, not at all like the pathetically untalented and dumb-as-a-post character Susan Alexander. And Davies stuck with Hearst through thick and thin. When he got into bad financial trouble she lent him $1 million, not the usual direction of the cash flow between mogul and mistress. (He paid her back.) He also writes, “While the impropriety and moral decay of the British royal family was already on full display in the early 1990s . . .” I cheerfully admit to being a cheerleader for the royal family, but have their improprieties and moral behavior been any worse than that of millions of other British families who do not have to live their lives in goldfish bowls? Or has the recent royal family been any worse behaved than it was in earlier times? Given my choice between the current Prince of Wales and his great uncle, Edward VIII, thanks, but I choose Charles. Edward VII was an often badly behaved Prince of Wales but was an excellent and very popular king. And don’t even mention the “wicked uncles” of Queen Victoria. They wrote the field manual on impropriety and moral decay. I think Foyle’s War is an altogether excellent series, and I highly recommend it. Michael Kitchen is perfect in the leading role.
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