“Mank” What did the Fincher family entrust to Herman J. Mankiewicz?

Wells vs. Mankiewicz battle erupts

I would like to quickly explain the controversy surrounding Pauline Kael's "Raising Kane," which led to the creation of "Mank."

At the end of the 1930s, the film studio RKO, which was in financial trouble, took notice of Orson Welles, a young genius who was in the spotlight in the theater world and radio dramas, and invited him to Hollywood with exceptional treatment. After several projects came and went, Welles asked Mankiewicz to write an original script. Mankiewicz moved from the New York theater world to Hollywood in the 1920s and became a popular screenwriter, but this was a time of stagnation and he helped Welles with his radio dramas.

Wells sent Mankiewicz to a rented vacation home on the Kemper-Campbell Ranch in Victorville, California, to isolate him from alcohol and concentrate on writing. What he spent six weeks writing was the first draft of the screenplay that would eventually become Citizen Kane .

The quarrel between the two began when Welles, interviewed during filming, said, ``I wrote Citizen Kane.'' The custom at the time was that screenwriters often worked without credit, and Welles, who was also a producer, was the legal author. Even if Mankiewicz wrote 100% of the screenplay, Welles was contractually able to keep it under his sole name.

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However, Mankiewicz insists on being credited as a screenwriter on Citizen Kane. The move in Hollywood to credit screenwriters separately from copyrights also provided a boost. As mentioned above, it was ultimately decided that Mankiewicz and Welles would co-write the screenplay. The completed film ``Citizen Kane'' was nominated for nine Academy Awards, but due to interference from the aforementioned Hearst camp, it only won for Best Original Screenplay. Ironically, Welles and Mankiewicz, who competed for the credits, ended up receiving the award together.

When asked to comment on the award, Mankiewicz said, "It makes sense that Orson isn't here right now (he was in Brazil filming a new movie), because he wasn't there when we wrote the script." He's making some pretty sarcastic remarks. On the other hand, Welles, who was 18 years younger than Mankiewicz, seems to have responded in a more adult way, albeit with similar irony. Wells sent the following letter to Mankiewicz from Brazil:

Dear Mankey. I was planning on sending this telegram so it would arrive at the Academy Awards banquet. "You can kiss the half of the Oscar statue that's meant for me." It's quite late, so I wrote your reply here as well. “Dear Orson, what was yours?” (excerpt)

Welles' letter also shows that Mankiewicz claimed that he wrote the screenplay alone, while Welles claimed that they co-wrote it. About 30 years later, in 1971, critic Pauline Kael announced her support for Mankiewicz. He appealed for the honor of Mankiewicz, who died in 1953, to be restored. In addition, Wells's defenders, represented by Peter Bogdanovich, countered in various ways, leading to a heated debate.

What was the reason for adopting the rejected “solo authorship theory”?