Citizen Kane makes it’s debut in Hearst Castle

Seventy one years after Citizen Kane premiered, Orson Welles’ thinly veiled character study of a mogul resembling William Randolph Hearst is finally getting a screening at the real life version of Xanadu. As part of the San Luis Obispo International Film Festival, the film was showcased on a 5 story tall screen at Hearst Castle on March 9, 2012.

When the film “Citizen Kane” came out in 1941, William Randolph Hearst gave it an unequivocal two thumbs down.

The press lord kept ads for the film out of his many newspapers. Just before its release, one of his allies in Hollywood tried to buy the footage in order to burn it. Another approached FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover, who launched a decade-long investigation of Orson Welles, the film’s 26-year-old director, producer, co-writer and star.

But rosebuds bloom in unlikely places. Seventy-one years after Hearst’s effort to derail it, “Citizen Kane” will be shown at Hearst Castle’s visitors center, with the blessings of the Hearst family.

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