Hugh Scully tells the story of how the American press baron
William Randolph Hearst (allegedly the inspiration for Orson
Welles's Citizen Kane, shown earlier today as the first film in the Cinema Century season) was obliged to sell some of his art collection in 1941 in Gimbels department store in New York. Having been forced into the sale by a cash deficit of$11 million, he sold only half of his amassed antiquities - the ones he had stored in a four-storey Bronx warehouse.
The sale gave ordinary people the chance to buy unique items at unbeatable prices. This documentary begins with archive footage of the sale, the treasures and some of Hearst's fabulous houses and goes on to trace the whereabouts and owners of some of the highly collectable items. A team of Antiques Roadshow-style experts helps Scully to unravel the stories behind some of the items and reassess their value.
See today's choices.
Director Alan Lewens
Producers Dee Lustig and Jo Lustig