Trivia

Release date: May 1, 1941

The movie was almost entirely shot in a studio. Some shots of Xanadu were made in New York.

Oscar: Best Writing, Original Screenplay -> Herman J. Mankiewicz, Orson Welles

Oscar nominations:
Best Actor
Best Cinematography
Best Director
Best Music
Best Picture
Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration
Best Film Editing
Best Sound Recording

Welles privately watched Stagecoach (1939) about 40 times while making this film.

The original nitrate negatives are gone.

Kane bought Susan an opera house, William Hearst bought a film studio to promote Marion Davies’ (his wife) stardom.

Orson Welles: “I started at the top [with this movie] and worked my way down”

Louella Parsons, a gossip journalist, working for Hearst threatened to publish exposes on the private lives of every one of the RKO board of directors if Citizen Kane was exhibited.
--Source: The First Lady of Hollywood: A Biography of Louella Parsons, Page 241

Despite all the publicity, the film was a box office flop and was quickly consigned to the RKO vaults.
--Source: The Making of Citizen Kane, Page 117

Not only the RKO studio was afraid of the Hearst retaliation. Several other major studio’s pooled together the total cost of the picture ($842,000?) in the hopes of getting the film away from Welles and into the nearest incinerator.
--Source: The Making of Citizen Kane, Page 112

For this movie cinematographer Gregg Toland, pioneered deep focus, a technique that keeps every object in the foreground and background in simultaneous focus.
--Source: Encyclopedia of Movie Special Effects, Page 61