Daily Dialogue — December 30, 2016

“Perfectly dreadful.”

— Citizen Kane (1941), original screen play by Herman J. Mankiewicz and Orson Welles

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Failure, suggested by Melinda Mahaffey and Will King.

Trivia: Writer Herman J. Mankiewicz was contractually bound not to drink during the film’s pre-production. Mankiewicz was a known alcoholic at the time. To help him, Orson Welles dispatched him out of Hollywood to the desert town of Victorville where drinking establishments were in shorter supply. Welles also sent producer John Houseman to mind Mankiewicz.

Dialogue On Dialogue: Apart from the song lyrics, the only dialogue in this painful sequence is a woman’s voice off-screen, then her derisive laugh. However it’s enough to jolt Kane out of his insulated little world in which he thinks Susan is performing wonderfully. The scene is capped off with one of the most memorable movie images of all-time: Kane clapping. Not even his force of will can overcome Susan’s failure as an opera singer.