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Review

This is a "True Hollywood Story" (apologies to E! Entertainment Television) that anyone who's read Kenneth Anger's "Hollywood Babylon" or, well, anything about old Hollywood and Welles already knows. Screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz (Malkovich) lets Orson Welles (Schreiber, who gets Welles' booming voice right at least) in on the dirty secret of "rosebud," and when William Randolph Hearst (Cromwell) finds out, he links arms with Louella Parsons (Blethyn) to try to stop the film's release. At first, the viewer senses an attempt to run a parallel structure to Citizen Kane. The opening shot is of a young Welles and his sick mother bearing an uncanny resemblance to the late, great Agnes Moorehead, who played Mrs. Kane. But the homages stop there. First, this venture would have gained a lot of class from being shot in black and white. Second, the casting is slipshod. Griffith may be fit to play Susan Alexander, but not Marion Davies, who was by all accounts a shrewd and interesting person. More than anything, this film dries you out with its irritating TV-style antics, so you're thirsty for a viewing of Citizen Kane itself.