RKO 281
Director: Benjamin Ross
Genre: Period piece, Indie, Docudrama, Drama
Year: 1999
Country: United Kingdom, United States of America
Language: English Language
Starring: Liev Schreiber, James Cromwell, Melanie Griffith, John Malkovich, Brenda Blethyn, Roy Scheider, Fiona Shaw
RKO 281 is a 1999 historical drama film directed by Benjamin Ross. It stars Liev Schreiber, James Cromwell, Melanie Griffith, John Malkovich, and Roy Scheider and depicts the troubled production behind the 1941 film Citizen Kane. The film's title is a reference to the original production number of Citizen Kane.
In 1940, Orson Welles (Schreiber), RKO studio head George Schaefer (Scheider), and screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz (Malkovich) struggle in making what will be considered as the greatest American film of all time, Citizen Kane. After learning that Welles' film is actually a thinly-veiled and exceptionally unflattering biography, publishing tycoon William Randolph Hearst (Cromwell) uses his immense power and influence to try to bury the picture.
Much of the film shows similarities between Kane and Hearst but also suggests Susan is based on Hearst's longtime mistress Marion Davies. However, in the introduction to Davies' autobiography The Time We Had: Life With William Randolph Hearst, Orson Welles wrote "And what of Susan Alexander? What indeed. It was a real man who built an opera house for the soprano of his choice, and much in the movie was borrowed from that story, but
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