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Auction History Result 2a0383 CITIZEN KANE pressbook 1941 Orson Welles most talked about continuous 1st release, ultra rare! Date Sold 4/17/2022 Sold For: Login or Register to see sold price. An Original 1941 (from the continuous first release of this movie) Vintage Theatrical Movie Pressbook (pb; measures 12" x 18" [30 x 46 cm]; 28 pages) (Learn More) Citizen Kane, the classic 1941 Orson Welles (nominated for the Best Director Academy Award for this film) biographical newspaper journalism melodrama ("Some called him a hero... Others called him a heel"; "It's Terrific!"; loosely based on the life of William Randolph Hearst; nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award; many people consider it the finest movie ever made) starring Orson Welles (nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award for this film; in the title role as Charles Foster Kane), with the members of Welles' "Mercury Actors", who had previously acted with him on stage, Joseph Cotten (as Jedediah Leland), Dorothy Comingore (as Susan Alexander Kane), Everett Sloane (as Mr. Bernstein), Ray Collins (as Jim W. Gettys), George Coulouris (as Walter Parks Thatcher), Agnes Moorehead (as Mary Kane, Kane's mother), Paul Stewart (as Raymond), Ruth Warrick (as Emily Monroe Norton Kane), Erskine Sanford (as Herbert Carter), William Alland (as Jerry Thompson), Fortunio Bonanova (as Signor Matiste), Buddy Swan (as Kane at age 8), Harry Shannon (as Kane's father), and Alan Ladd (in one of his early incredibly tiny parts, but he does have a single speaking line!) NOTE: Click on linked names to see a biography. Important Added Info: Note that it is well known that Citizen Kane did not do well on its initial release, and that this caused RKO to panic, both because they had invested a huge amount of money in that movie, and also on Orson Welles' second movie, The Magnificent Ambersons, which had not yet been released. There is something unusual about the ad campaign for Citizen Kane. RKO made two pressbooks in 1941, and they look very different from each other. One of the pressbooks has the "It's terrific" ad campaign and cover that was used at the premiere of the movie on May 1, 1941, so that one is surely from the very first release of the movie, when it opened, and the other one has a "most talked about film of a decade" tagline, so it was created after the movie had its wide release in September 1941, and after many reviews had come out about the movie. We know that the movie did poorly at the box office at first, so we imagine that RKO created the second entirely different pressbook (with an entirely different ad campaign) to try to get more people to go see the movie, maybe being convinced by critical raves for it. The pressbook with "the most talked about" tagline has a tagline on the first interior page that says "Citizen Kane brings the terrific impact of its road show triumphs", showing that it was from after the May road show release and surely just before the September wide release. Both pressbooks are dated 1941, and we are labeling the "It's terrific" one as being from the "road show release", and the "most talked about" one as being from the "continuous first release". 22 years ago, we auctioned another example of this pressbook, and it sold for $1,092. Two years ago, we auctioned the other style pressbook, but it was in dreadful condition, and otherwise, we have never auctioned it before. THIS AUCTION IS FOR THE "MOST TALKED ABOUT" PRESSBOOK (we are also auctioning the "It's terrific" pressbook in a separate auction)! Note that in December 2021, we were consigned a truly remarkable collection of pressbooks (the first 37 were auctioned in our December Major Auction, and the most expensive one sold for $17,500!). In our regular auctions since, we have auctioned hundreds more from this collection. Now we continue to auction more of these pressbooks, which is absolutely the finest collection of pressbooks we have ever auctioned. In this April Major Auction, we are auctioning 32 REALLY excellent and extremely rare ones, "the best of the best", mostly 11" x 15" or larger. Some of them were folded at one time, but they were stored unfolded for many years, so we left them unfolded, and unless the new owner requests otherwise, we will send them unfolded, because re-folding them would likely lessen the condition. These were collected decades ago, which was the only time that many of these could be found, and after these auctions are over it may be years (or decades!) before some of these are offered again. They ARE that rare! Note that pressbooks from the 1930s are almost never found in great condition, and some of them (especially those printed during World War II, including all the MGM ones from that time) are printed on newsprint, and are hard to find in even lesser condition. We have several images from each pressbook. We have given each an overall grade, and ask that you look at our images to get a good sense of the condition of that pressbook, because, since they have many pages, it would take forever to describe their condition in detail. However, EVERY one of these pressbooks is complete and uncut! Condition: good to very good, NO CUTS. The covers are separated at the spine. There is separation in the left half of the center fold on the front cover. Note that we solely give an overall grade to these rare pressbooks, and tell you whether it is complete and uncut. However, you can view our multiple images of the covers and the interior pages that should give you a good sense of the pressbook's condition. Learn More about condition grades 
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