May 1 marks one of the most important dates in film history, particularly this year. Seventy-five years ago Sunday, on May 1, 1941, Citizen Kane premiered at the Palace Theatre in New York. The film, considered by many to be the greatest ever made, has a well-earned place in cinema’s pantheon, and if you’d like to mark the anniversary, Slate’s Jacob T. Swinney has you covered with this excellent supercut of other films’ homages to Welles’ masterpiece.
But even if Citizen Kane was relatively unheralded at the time of its release, it’s been struggling to hold up under a giant pile of laurels for decades now. So maybe it’s time to celebrate another anniversary, one history has—until now—overlooked. I’m talking about the May 1, 1966, release of the barely-even-good-enough-to-be-mediocre Woody Woodpecker short “Practical Yolk.” It’s hard to believe it’s been 50 years since Woody was first chased around a badly drawn pyramid by some sort of archeologist lady, but check your calendar—it has! What’s more, unlike Kane’s premiere, May 1, 1966, was important globally, not just to New Yorkers. As Americans across the country were barely chuckling at Woody’s escapades and planning to arrive at the theater later next time, the Soviet Union staged a massive May Day parade, complete with rocket launchers and tanks.
So this May 1, Slate salutes both anniversaries with a sort of joint birthday party: a special screening of “Practical Yolk” in badly dubbed Russian. Travel back in time with us to 1966, when Citizen Kane was only 25 years old, Orson Welles was 50, tanks were rolling across Red Square, and “Practical Yolk” was brand new but also had somehow already been dubbed in Russian. Here’s to director Paul J. Smith, writer Cal Howard, the anonymous Russian voice actors who simply talk over the original soundtrack, and of course, the workers of the world. None of you exactly turned out to be Orson Welles, but then again, who does?
