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Citizen Kane (1941) Critics

'Citizen Kane' is a film possessing the sure dollar mark, which distinguishes every daring entertainment venture that is created by a workman who is a master of the technique and mechanics of his medium. It is a two-hour show, filled to the last minute with brilliant incident unreeled in method and effects that sparkle with originality and invention. Within the trade, 'Kane' will stimulate keener creative efforts by Hollywood's top directors.

From the standpoint of original treatment and technical innovations one h as to go back to Birth of a Nation to find its equal… It serves to introduce a superlative new artist and craftsman to a form which has need of artistry and integrity.

Herald Tribune, Howard Barnes, 1941

It comes close to being the most sensational film ever made in Hollywood. Mr Welles has put upon the screen a motion picture that really moves.

New York Times, Bosley Crowther, 2 May 1941

To be truthful, during the first twenty minutes of viewing the film, I, who have been thirty years in this business of making films, did not know what it was all about. I may be dumb, but I have asked at least fifty people who in more or less articulate form described the same experience. I may be hyper-conservative or just plain old fashioned, but I believe in all sincerity that the form of telling the story of Citizen Kane is not the desired or successful form in which to tell a screen story. All of us have been accustomed to hear or to see a story start at the beginning. Welles's way of telling the story may have its place in a novel or on the stage, but I am convinced that in the cinema it is entirely out of place.

Decision, Vol 1 No 6, Erich von Stroheim, June 1941

“Before Citizen Kane, it's as if the motion picture was a slumbering monster, a mighty force stupidly sleeping, lying there, sleek, torpid, complacent—awaiting a fierce young man to come kick it to life, to rouse it, shake it, awaken it to its potentialities, to show it what it's got. Seeing it, it's as if you never really saw a movie before.

 Cecelia Ager, PM

An exciting work, vital and imaginative, full of the unbridled energy Orson Welles brings to every new medium he invades.

Hermine Rich Isaacs, Theatre Arts

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