imitation over innovation. What was praised was an author's ability to mirror already

established standards. As Abrams argues, in this model, the poet was regarded primarily

as "the maker of a work of art according to universal standards of excellence" (The

Mirror and the Lamp 26). The task of a critic was to uncover how well those established

standards had been followed. Spiegel similarly advocated a close adherence to, or

mirroring of, the established rules of the studio system. A director was to be like an

auctor, a craftsman who could successfully reflect the conventions of the system. By that

standard, things had gone well with The Stranger. It was a standard genre film that

cashed in over three million, almost three times its cost, upon initial release. Perhaps

things had gone too well.

 By all accounts, Welles had signed up for The Stranger in order to make a

conventional film. After struggling with trying to make ambitious projects like War and

Peace and Crime and Punishment, Otto Friedrich tells us, he wanted to convince "a

suspicious Hollywood that he could make a perfectly orthodox film" (266). This new

project would be completed on time and under budget, thus disproving accusations that

he was undependable. To a certain extent, these were false accusations, since, as

Naremore points out, "he was never 'inclined to joke with other people's money'"

(Magic World 83). Citizen Kane was actually made on a relatively low budget of

$749,000. Yet, during the 1940s, he had developed the reputation of being an

unaffordable director. Therefore, The Stranger would be different. The film would still

carry his name, but the name would not mean the same thing it had before. So, rather than

the "Director's Cut," what we end up with is a highly efficient narrative, proving that

Welles could indeed "say 'action' and 'cut' just like all the other fellas." To put it another