The Battle Over Citizen Kane Mercury Theatre (such as an adaptation of William Shakespeare's "Macbeth", which featured an all-black cast and was set in the jungle), and the infamy of his October 30, 1938, radio broadcast of H. G. Wells' "The War of the Worlds", which sent residents of Grover's Mill, New Jersey into a panic, Orson Welles was able to negotiate a virtually unheard-of two-picture deal with RKO Pictures, the smallest of the 'big five' major studios in this era. The deal gave him creative control under a budget limit. "The Battle Over Citizen Kane" also details the lives of Orson Welles and William
Orson Welles 28, 1941 – January 22, 1942. Throughout the shooting of the film Welles was also producing a weekly half-hour radio series, "The Orson Welles Show". Many of the "Ambersons" cast participated in the CBS Radio series, which ran September 15, 1941 – February 2, 1942. At RKO's request, Welles worked on an adaptation of Eric Ambler's spy thriller, "Journey into Fear", co-written with Joseph Cotten. In addition to acting in the film, Welles was the producer. Direction was credited to Norman Foster. Welles later said that they were in such a rush that the director of each scene was determined