Citizen Kaneis not only one of the most important films in the history of movie-making, it’s also considered by many to be one of the greatest films of all time. As is befitting of one of history’s greatest movies, when thefilm review aggregator Rotten Tomatoescame into being, all the reviews were tallied up, and the film enjoyed a 100% fresh rating, indicating that the movie had received nothing but positive reviews from critics.
As it turns out, however, not everyone was in love withCitizen Kanewhen it first came out. Rotten Tomatoes, as part of its attempts to restore and preserve the history of film criticism, has recently unearthed a nearly 80-year-old review for the film that ran in theChicago Tribuneand had been forgotten until now.
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The review, which originally ran in 1941, ran with the headline “Citizen KaneFails to Impress Critic as Greatest Ever Filmed.” While the critic in question had several positive comments about the film, they overall marked it as an underwhelming experience, remarking thatit lacked general entertainment value, and that they disliked the use of lighting throughout the movie. As a generally negative impression the review was categorized as negative when added to Rotten Tomatoes' website, lowering the film’s perfect score to a ‘99% fresh’ rating.
This has knocked theiconic film out of the 100% fresh club, which includes films likeTerminator,Paddington 2,andFrankenstein. As for the critic who dealt the critical blow, they wrote the original review under the pseudonym of Mae Tinée, a pen name that was commonly used at the time.
Given the age of the review and the false name given, film buffs may never know the true identity of the person who brought downCitizen Kane. Still, clearly they haven’t been vindicated by history, as the film is still remembered as a classic worthy of the title “greatest of all time.” At the very least, their voice has been officially heard and noted; nearly 80 years after it was originally written, this singular negative review has finally been rediscovered and added to the scoreboard.
Whether or not people agree with the opinion of the reviewer in question, it’s interesting to see a piece of film history being restored like this. It’s alsoa credit to the Rotten Tomatoes teamand their dedication to re-discovering and archiving film reviews however possible, even if it meansCitizen Kanewill have to settle for the injustice of a 99% fresh rating.
