1934 California Gubernatorial Election Attack Ads - Staged Newsreels
These staged newsreels attacking socialist
Upton Sinclair during the 1934 election
for governor of California are considered
to be the first onscreen political attack
ads. Sinclair was running against Raymond
L. Haight and Republican incumbent Frank
Merriam. The newsreels, which feature
man-on-the-street interviews, are used as
a fictional plot device in the David
Fincher movie
Mank, which falsely
implies that
Citizen Kane
screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz was upset
at William Randolph Hearst for funding the
Upton Sinclair attack ads. The movie
claims this is what later inspired
Mankiewicz to model his unsavory character
Charles Foster Kane after Hearst.
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