"Rosebud"

Bob Jackson Light Tourer

Classic bike, lots of style.

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"Rosebud was a bike."  The mantra of San Francisco's Citizen Chain bike shop sits proudly in the front window next to the bikes with the most personality and character. Rosebud, the enigmatic last words of the newspaper mogul Charles Kane, has been regarded as one of the greatest secrets in cinema.  The idea that a bike could be so intimately connected to person to be their dying utterance seems like a leap to say the least.  However, cursory research reveals this to be one of a half dozen leading hypotheses. 

The story is that in an early draft of the film, screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz wrote that Orwell’s character mentions Rosebud to a secretary who then asks “who is she?”  Kane’s answer is nearly as cryptic as his dying breath, “It isn't a who, it's an it."  Stories circulate that the symbol of Mankiewicz's own damaged childhood was a treasured bicycle, stolen while he visited the public library and, in punishment, never replaced.  Some critics believe this is the emotion he drew on when writing the loss that haunted Kane.  I suppose we all have our own Rosebuds.

Welles' may have been "don't-let-them-make-war-of-the-worlds-into-a-shit-film".