A film à clef (or cinéma à clef, movie à clef, film à clé (French: [film a kle], lit. 'film with a key') is a film describing real life, behind a façade of fiction. "Key" in this context means a table one can use to swap out the names.
Film à clef is the film equivalent of the literary roman à clef, and the two share the same techniques.
Legal drama, also called courtroom drama or law procedural, is a genre of film and television that generally focuses on narratives regarding legal practice and the justice system. The American Film Institute (AFI) defines "courtroom drama" as a genre of film in which a system of justice plays a critical role in the film's narrative. Legal dramas have also followed the lives of the fictional attorneys, defendants, plaintiffs, or other persons related to the practice of law present in television show or film. Legal drama is distinct from police crime drama or detective fiction, which typically focus on police officers or detectives investigating and solving crimes. The focal point of legal dramas, more often, are events occurring within a courtroom, but may include any phases of legal procedure, such as jury deliberations or work done at law firms. Some legal dramas fictionalize real cases which have been litigated, such as the play turned into a movie, Inherit the Wind fictionalizing the Scopes Monkey Trial. As a genre, the term "legal drama" is usually applied to television shows and films, whereas legal thrillers typically refer to novels and plays.
Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film directed and produced by, and starring Orson Welles and co-written by Welles and Herman J. Mankiewicz. It was Welles's first feature film. The quasi-biographical film examines the life and legacy of Charles Foster Kane, played by Welles, a composite character based on American media barons William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, Chicago tycoons Samuel Insull and Harold McCormick, as well as aspects of the screenwriters' own lives.
After the Broadway success of Welles's Mercury Theatre and the controversial 1938 radio broadcast "The War of the Worlds" on The Mercury Theatre on the Air, Welles was courted by Hollywood. He signed a contract with RKO Pictures in 1939. Although it was unusual for an untried director, he was given freedom to develop his own story, to use his own cast and crew, and to have final cut privilege. Following two abortive attempts to get a project off the ground, he wrote the screenplay for Citizen Kane with Herman J. Mankiewicz. Principal photography took place in 1940, the same year its innovative trailer was shown, and the film was released in 1941.