On the night of May 1, 1941—exactly 75 years ago this weekend—the movie now hailed as one of the best ever premiered in New York City. That first showing was followed by premieres in Chicago and Los Angeles, along with rave reviews and a whiff of a scandal, all of which helped to build buzz in the almost four months before its general release.
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Scandal had surrounded the movie prior to its initial release, when it was rumored that publisher William Randolph Hearst might sue over his purported resemblance to the character of Kane. But if that helped to make audiences aware of the film, reviews like this one from TIME were making the case that they needed to see it:
So sharply does Citizen Kane veer from cinema cliche, it hardly seems like a movie. There are some extraordinary technical novelties through which Welles and wiry, experienced little Photographer Gregg Toland have given the camera a new elo quence — for example, the “stolen” newsreels, the aged and streaked documentary shots. When Susan makes her disastrous operatic debut, the camera tells the story by climbing high up among the flies to find two stagehands — one with his hand pinching his nose in disgust. Always the camera seems to be giving the narrative a special meaning where it will help most: picturing a small bottle beside a tumbler when Susan Kane is lying drugged with an overdose of sedatives, exploring the love nest and the family breakfast table like a pair of prying eyes and ears.
Orson Welles treats the audience like a jury, calling up the witnesses, letting them offer the evidence, injecting no opinions of his own. He merely sees that their stories are told with absorbing clarity. Unforgettable are such scenes as the spanning of Kane’s first marriage in a single conversation, the silly immensity of the castle halls which echo the flat whines of Susan.
Read the full story, here in the TIME Vault: Kane Case
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Write to Lily Rothman at lily.rothman@time.com