If ever there was a film epitomising the best and worst of the "American Dream" then this has to be the one.... Orson Welles has mastered the role of the playboy millionaire who decides to have a go at running a small provincial newspaper - ostensibly to empower the common people and give them a voice... Shortly his combination of wealth, determination and deftness has created a monster with tentacles into almost every aspect of American life; and with that, as they say about absolute power - a good dose of personal ambition and corruption. Gradually losing those around him who debate and challenge, he becomes an intellectual brute; a tyrant - and an emotionally unfulfilled one at that. Joseph Cotton is also superb as his best friend who suffers with his own internal turmoils as he watches the rise and rise of "Kane"; Everett Sloane as his long-suffering sidekick and Dorothy Comingore as his second wife "Susan" plays her role almost exactly as an immature child, in the care of a stern but equally immature guardian. It is as much a social commentary of 1940s aspirational America as it is a powerful depiction of megalomania - and although it has certainly lost some of it's bite over the last 80 years it still delivers a powerful analysis of the concentration of wealth, power, and influence that could easily be applied (to social media domination) today. As with so many Hitchcock films, Bernard Hermann delivers an enveloping score in which this all floats nicely - and technically, it wants for nothing - the eeriness and sterility of "Xanadu" contributing wonderfully to the last half hour of this enigmatic story.
