The weather had been balmy in Southern California that August of 1940—a welcome contrast to the heat and humidity that had blistered most of the United States all summer. In Culver City, a town as much a part of “Hollywood” for moviemaking as the actual community of that name seven miles to the northeast, the sparkling blue skies and wispy clouds were ideal for filming outside.

But on August 15, two weeks into production of RKO Radio Pictures’ most prominent and controversial motion picture of the year—or any year—the schedule called for work indoors on a soundstage down a long, narrow street shared with cozy California bungalows.

The full crew had not yet arrived when a reporter was ushered onto the soundstage to meet the young director, co- writer, producer, and star—all one person—who had been on the set since four a.m. preparing a scene for his first motion picture.

The creation of Citizen Kane is a story of many contrasts: it is a celebration of artistic vision and a disturbing account of corporate conspiracy. It is a drama that played out in the make- believe world of soundstages in Hollywood as well as the real- life boardrooms of New York City and at a mountaintop palace high above the Pacific coast. It is the public story of a private witch hunt: how a media organization that claimed “genuine democracy” as its maxim sought to strangle the First Amendment, first by trying to suppress Citizen Kane and then by attempting to destroy it.

But most of all, the creation of Citizen Kane is a story that continues to amaze—and confound—those who explore how it unfolded: a 25-five-year-old who had never worked in Hollywood created as his first production a motion picture often called the best ever made.

There is no formula for cinema excellence, but the journey to create it can be chronicled. This is the story of Orson Welles’ journey. . .