Briefly explain how Welles benefited from using the actors from his Mercury Theatre days to enhance the film through supporting characters like Kane’s mother or Boss Jim Gettys

What will be an ideal response?

Answer: The ideal answer should include:
1. Citizen Kane boasts a first-rate cast. There are a few so-so performances, but not one is weak, and several are outstanding, most notably those of Welles, Dorothy Comingore, Joseph Cotten,
Everett Sloane, and Agnes Moorehead.
2. Like most performers who are used to acting repertory style, members of the cast work as an ensemble; the total effect is one of dramatic scenes that mesh seamlessly.
3. The Mercury Theatre players Welles used in Kane all look like seasoned film performers, not the young neophytes they actually were. For most of them, this was their first movie, yet they are always natural, sincere, and believable.
4. Even some of the cameo roles are performed with distinction. Because these parts are limited to only a few lines of dialogue, the actors had to be able to convey the complexity of their characters—who are often contradictory—without appearing inconsistent.
5. For example, Ray Collins performs Boss Jim Gettys as a cunning survivor. Streetwise and cynical, he is a man who has seen it all. Or at least he thought he had seen it all until he came up against Kane. Gettys seems quietly shocked that Kane, a supposedly high-class opponent, would be so low class as to publish a doctored photo of Gettys “in a convict suit with stripes, so his children could see the picture in the paper, or his mother.” We can’t help but sympathize with Gettys’s outrage, notwithstanding the fact that otherwise he is a creep.
6. Another example is Agnes Moorehead as Kane’s mother, who although she appears in only one scene, leaves an indelible impression. Moorehead’s Mary Kane might almost have stepped out of a tale by Nathaniel Hawthorne: stern, puritanical, joyless. Mrs. Kane is a woman of few words, but her determination is communicated by her steely stoicism, her decisive movements, her ramrod-straight back. This is not a lady to mess with.