Citizen Kane Page #7

RAWLSTON:

All right. But what was the race?

There is a short silence.

RAWLSTON:

Thompson!

THOMPSON:

Yes, sir.

RAWLSTON:

Hold this thing up for a week.

Two weeks if you have to...

THOMPSON:

(feebly)

But don't you think if we release

it now - he's only been dead four

days it might be better than if -

RAWLSTON:

(decisively)

Nothing is ever better than finding

out what makes people tick. Go

after the people that knew Kane

well. That manager of his - the

little guy, Bernstein, those two

wives, all the people who knew

him, had worked for him, who loved

him, who hated his guts -

(pauses)

I don't mean go through the City

Directory, of course -

The Third Man gives a hearty "yes-man" laugh.

THOMPSON:

I'll get to it right away, Mr.

Rawlston.

RAWLSTON:

(rising)

Good!

The camera from behind him, outlines his back against Kane's

picture on the screen.

RAWLSTON'S VOICE

It'll probably turn out to be a

very simple thing...

FADE OUT:

NOTE:
Now begins the story proper - the seach by Thompson for

the facts about Kane - his researches ... his interviews with

the people who knew Kane.

It is important to remember always that only at the very end

of the story is Thompson himself a personality. Until then,

throughout the picture, we photograph only Thompson's back,

shoulders, or his shadow - sometimes we only record his voice.

He is not until the final scene a "character". He is the

personification of the search for the truth about Charles Foster

Kane. He is the investigator.

FADE IN:

EXT. CHEAP CABARET - "EL RANCHO" - ATLANTIC CITY - NIGHT -

1940 (MINIATURE) - RAIN

The first image to register is a sign:

"EL RANCHO"

FLOOR SHOW:

SUSAN ALEXANDER KANE

TWICE NIGHTLY:

These words, spelled out in neon, glow out of the darkness at

the end of the fade out. Then there is lightning which reveals

a squalid roof-top on which the sign stands. Thunder again,

and faintly the sound of music from within. A light glows

from a skylight. The camera moves to this and closes in.

Through the splashes of rain, we see through the skylight down

into the interior of the cabaret. Directly below us at a table

sits the lone figure of a woman, drinking by herself.

DISSOLVE:

INT. "EL RANCO" CABARET - NIGHT -

Medium shot of the same woman as before, finishing the drink

she started to take above. It is Susie. The music, of course,

is now very loud. Thompson, his back to the camera, moves

into the picture in the close foreground. A Captain appears

behind Susie, speaking across her to Thompson.

THE CAPTAIN:

(a Greek)

This is Mr. Thompson, Miss

Alexander.

Susan looks up into Thompson's face. She is fifty, trying to

look much younger, cheaply blonded, in a cheap, enormously

generous evening dress. Blinking up into Thompson's face, she

throws a crink into ther mouth. Her eyes, which she thinks is

keeping commandingly on his, are bleared and watery.

SUSAN:

(to the Captain)

I want another drink, John.

Low thunder from outside.

THE CAPTAIN:

(seeing his chance)

Right away. Will you have

something, Mr. Thompson?

THOMPSON:

(staring to sit

down)

I'll have a highball.

SUSAN:

(so insistently as

to make Thompson

change his mind

and stand up again)

Who told you you could sit down

here?

THOMPSON:

Oh! I thought maybe we could have

a drink together?

SUSAN:

Think again!

There is an awkward pause as Thompson looks from her to the

Captain.

SUSAN:

Why don't you people let me alone?

I'm minding my own business. You

mind yours.

THOMPSON:

If you'd just let me talk to you

for a little while, Miss Alexander.

All I want to ask you...

SUSAN:

Get out of here!

(almost hysterical)

Get out! Get out!

Thompson looks at the Captain, who shrugs his shoulders.

THOMPSON:

I'm sorry. Maybe some other time -

If he thought he would get a response from Susan, who thinks

she is looking at him steelily, he realizes his error. He

nods and walks off, following the Captain out the door.

THE CAPTAIN:

She's just not talking to anybody

from the newspapers, Mr. Thompson.

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