This source is of particular interest to the paper because it was written at the time of the films release. This is the original New York Times movie review that the makers of Casablanca were anxiously awaiting on November 7th 1942. Michael Curtiz and company certainly had nothing to worried about as Bosley Crowther gave the film a rave review and hailed it as “one of the year’s most exciting and trenchant films.” Crowther awards Casablanca for its flawless combination of sentiment, humor, and sorrow to create a film that is both entertaining and inspiring. The review also comments on the film’s underlying political message, particularly in Humphrey Bogart’s performance as Rick Blaine. Crowther states that the film uses Bogart’s role “to inject a cold point of tough resistance to evil forces afoot in Europe today.” This statement is so telling because it reflects the reaction of audiences during the actual time of the film’s debut; it shows that the film was viewed as a vehicle for propaganda to communicate support of the war effort and a fight against fascism. This review is extremely insightful because it puts the movie into its historical context by lending us the perspective of a movie critic of that specific time period.

Crowther, Bosley. "The Ambiguous ‘Citizen Kane’ :Orson Welles, in His First Motion Picture, Creates a Titanic Character Which Does Everything but Explain Itself ." New York Times (1857-Current file) [New York, N.Y.] 4 May 1941, X5. ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2004). ProQuest. Van Pelt Library University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA. 9 Apr 2008 http://proxy.library.upenn.edu:2100/

Bosley Crowther was a film critic for the New York Times. He is one of the first critics to call Citizen Kane the best movie of all time.

Crowther wrote a glowing review of Citizen Kane on May 2nd, 1941, the day after the premiere in New York. He was so impressed with the film that four days after the premiere, he wrote in this article that Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane could be the greatest movie of all time. He conceded that he might have been going out on a limb and that the felt slightly uneasy about this bold declaration, but that he knew that the film was vastly superior to average film of the day. He wrote that because the film maker was so young – only 25 –he was not sure how the future would fare for Welles. He commented about the movie’s hyped-up release and stated that at the premiere, the film was “riding the crest of the most provocative publicity wave ever to float a motion picture.” This wave of publicity was caused by Hearst’s insistence that the film be taken off of the market before it was even released. Crowther wrote about the viewers reactions to the portrayal of the media tycoon. Even though not a single “black mark” is made against the character, the audience still walked away with a vague idea of the rash techniques used by ruthless publishers. This juxtaposes the films portrayal of Kane as an honest publisher. Crowther then wrote about the ending of the film and how he felt that it increased the complexity of the film because the ending didn’t explain itself. He was of the opinion that Welles was a brilliant filmmaker, but because he was so young, he would need more experience in the discipline.

This article is groundbreaking with respect to the fact that it is one of the first to hail Welles’s movie as a masterpiece and one of the greatest movies ever made. In the years after the film, its popularity waned at first but then began to increase with time. When one looks today at various organization’s rankings of the best movies of all time (eg Time, AFI, IMDB), usually Citizen Kane tops the list. One might think that Crowther’s positive reviews of the film would inspire more viewership, however the film was not a blockbuster and it seems that Hearst’s attempts at suppressing it were effective.