Daily Dialogue — December 27, 2013

THATCHER: Well, Charles. Merry Christmas!
YOUNG KANE: Merry Christmas!
THATCHER: And a happy new year! In closing, may I again remind you that your twenty-fifth birthday, which is now approaching, marks your complete independence from the firm of Thatcher and Company as well as the assumption by your full responsibility for the world’s sixth largest private fortune. Have you got that?
SECRETARY: The world’s sixth largest private fortune.

— Citizen Kane (1941), screenplay by Herman J. Mankiewicz & Orson Welles, Uncredited contributions by John Houseman, Roger Q. Denny, Mollie Kent

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week is Christmas. Today’s post is suggested by Alejandro. You may see all of Thatcher’s speech by going here.

Trivia: Despite all the publicity, the film was a box office flop and was quickly consigned to the RKO vaults. At 1941′s Academy Awards the film was booed every time one of its nine nominations was announced. It was only re-released for the public in the mid-1950s. In an attempt to recoup some of its losses after its initial box-office flop, RKO distributed this film in January 1942 on a double bill with The Little Foxes (1941) starring Bette Davis.

Dialogue On Dialogue: If the flaming match to burning desert imagery in Lawrence of Arabia is the most brilliant visual-to-visual transitions in cinema, this is one of the best uses of audio-to-audio transitions. “Merry Christmas” with Charles as a youth. “Happy New Year” with Charles (in the next scene) as an adult. 

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