It goes without saying that the "Kane" of the title is Orson Welles's film Citizen Kane, about which Kael has much of interest to relate including a character sketch of Herman Mankiewicz, the brilliantly clever, malicious, utterly disillusioned journalist who was largely responsible for the script. Pauline Kael recalls how she once saw William Randolph Hearst in the flesh, when she was 19, at a dinner dance and she remembers him, towering and heavy, moving trance like about the room with the actress Marion Davies. Other highlights in this collection of articles and essays are a brilliantly considered study of Cary Grant and the reasons for his long lasting success, a searching critique of Bonnie and Clyde, and a pessimistic look at the future of the film industry entitled Why Are Movies So Bad? There is an excellent introduction by Philip French, but then Kael scarcely, at this late stage, needs any introduction.