Believe it or not, Orson Welles founded Mercury Pictures in 1936 when he was (get this) twenty-one years old. He got the thing running as an independent theatre company and eventually used it to produce Citizen Kane.

But here's an interesting tidbit: even before Welles used Mercury to produce Kane, he used it to produce the insane radio version of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds a sci-fi program so real that people were rumored to have jumped out of windows because they actually thought aliens had invaded earth.

So let's just go ahead and say that the young Mr. Orson Welles had a very mature talent for affecting his audiences on a deep level. And thanks to him and his indie film company, we now have one of the best movies ever made. Not too shabby, Orson. Not too shabby at all.