The manuscripts for ‘Citizen Kane,” considered one of the greatest movies of all time, have brought in more than $102,000 at auction.
An original first rough draft of ”American,” the working title for ”Citizen Kane,” written in 1940 by Orson Welles’ collaborator Herman Mankiewicz sold for $32,000.
The next draft, featuring a fuller evolution of the script, went for $25,600.
The third and final revised script sold for $44,8000.
It includes Welles’ handwritten notes and is signed by most of the cast principals.
The seller was a close friend of Welles, who’d acquired the material from the filmmaker, who died in 1985.
Also auctioned off was a rare, original 49-page CBS-issued transcript of the 1938 Mercury Theatre radio broadcast of ”War of the Worlds,” an adaptation of H.G. Wells’ sci-fi novel, and the cover letter from the network apologizing for the hysteria created by the dramatization of a Martian invasion.
It came from another collector and sold for $28,800.
Plus a typed manuscript with Welles’ handwritten notes for a proposed 1950s TV adaptation of ”Citizen Kane,” brought $20,480.
Welles directed and starred in the movie, about the rise and fall of a publishing tycoon.