Confidential Report

Did I ever mention that I watched Mr. Arkadin every day for three months once? And that I recently bought a version of it different from the one I bought years ago (supposedly the UK print), and enjoyed it like I was seeing it for the first time?

Welles is a childhood hero. There's nothing rational about my feelings about Welles. If there are Welles fan boys, I admit to being one. But I have entertained the notion that I like Mr. Arkadin (also called Confidential Report, sometimes) as much as I do because it so completely betrays Welles as a titanic artist having to deal with the small frustrations and vicissitudes of Everyman. The bones of the thing, the behind the scene life of the film, the fact that the whole thing at one point passed through the man's hands shows through more than on any film he ever made. You actually see the customs stamps at the end of reels! His stratagems are more obvious, his resources more threadbare here than even Othello, his most legendary prolonged/disjointed/truncated shoot. Parts of it look shot on Super8; as good as some of it looks, at other times, the lighting doesn't feel professional (I am thinking of the nightclub and penitent procession scenes). In the end, I think Arkadin is the one completed and released Welles film that humanizes the man, without exactly bringing him low.

Clinching my interest in the film is Welles' comment, reiterated for different interviewers through the years, that Arkadin contained the best story he ever thought up to film. (He made a radio script of it first, and when he refined it for film, he saw fit to keep perhaps 95% intact from the radio play.) I may not agree with Welles' own appraisal of Arkadin as a story, but again, his comments betray perhaps more than intended: Welles' deep, and possibly irrational, feeling of attachment to this film. He said he considered it the most 'destroyed' film (destroyed by outside interference) he ever made. --Worse even than The Ambersons! I really think he never had "closure" with the experience of making Arkadin, and it continued to haunt him the rest of his days.

I invite you to take a look at it (it is available in many cheap public domain DVD versions) and see if you, too, fall under its spell. If it leaves you totally cold, or you can't take it seriously, I understand. But remember, better and worse DVD versions exist. Supposedly, the Criterion Collection will release it sometime in the next couple of years. That may be the version to make your definitive move with.

Interesting but odd film about an amnesiac millionaire financier who hires an investigator to find his past . Screenwriter , filmmaker , star Welles adopting from his own novel and directing this strange flick , thematically similar to Citizen Kane . The novel and the screenplay were both based on an episode in the radio series, "The Lives of Harry Lime", in which Welles played his Harry Lime character as rather less villainous that he was in The third man . It deals with an American adventurer who investigates the past of mysterious tycoon Arkadin (Orson Welles) placing himself in grave danger . Guy (the Harry Lime character is renamed "Guy van Stratten" and is played by Robert Arden) finds it most pleasant to investigate Arkadin though his lovely daughter Raina (all of Paola Mori's dialogue was dubbed by Billie Whitelaw and Marlene Dietrich turned down the role), her father's idol. However Stratton learns that all the persons he asked about Arkadin are getting killed. Guy follows the descending and intriguing trail to a surprise final .

This suspense movie contains intrigue , thrills , plot twists and layered dialog prevail . Excellent acting by the maestro Orson Welles playing the life of yet another ruthless millionaire, he stars a famed tycoon with a shady past , similarly to Citizen Kane . It stars newcomers actors , as the credits read "And introducing Paola Mori" who married Orson Welles ; however, she had been in at least four films prior to this ; the credits also imply the "And introducing" refers to Robert Arden as well, who also had had at least two credited big screen performances . Good support cast as Michael Redgrave as Burgomil , Patricia Medina as Mily , Akim Tamiroff as Jakob Zouk , Mischa Auer , Amparo Rivelles , Katina Paxinou as Sophie , Grégoire Aslan as Bracco , Peter van Eyck as Thaddeus and Suzanne Flon as Baroness Nagel ; but even the efforts of a cool cast couldn't help Welles turn this into a critical or commercial success . Filmed over two years around Europe , required seven years of post production , before finding distribution in 1962 . It has recently released a comprehensive three-DVD set of the film, featuring three versions: the "Corinth" version¨ that was generally regarded closest to Orson Welles's cut, "Confidential Report" or European cut, and the newly edited "Comprehensive" version. Each version contains a few shots or lines that are missing from the other two. Because the film was taken out of Welles' control in post-production, we will never know exactly what he had in mind for the complex flashback structure he spoke of later in his life. Mr. Arkadin was created from three episodes of the 1951-1952 radio program, The Lives of Harry Lime: Man of Mystery , Murder on the Rivera and Blackmail Is an Ugly Word. Arkadin is based mostly on the first of the three and centered on a character named Gregory Arkadian , primary characters and set-ups are taken from the other two episodes . Good cinematography in black and white by Jean Burgoin , as in Citizen Kane is plenty of oblique camera angles . Atmospheric and evocative musical score by Paul Misraki .

Mr. Arkadin also titled Confidential Report was well directed by Orson Welles , a genius who had a large and problematic career . In 1938 he produced "The Mercury Theatre on the Air", famous for its broadcast version of "The War of the Worlds" . His first film to be seen by the public was Ciudadano Kane (1941), a commercial failure , but regarded by many as the best film ever made , along with his following movie , The magnificent Ambersons . He subsequently directed Shakespeare adaptation such as Macbeth , Othelo and Chimes at Midnight or Falstaff . Many of his next films were commercial flops and he exiled himself to Europe in 1948. In 1956 he directed Touch of evil (1958); it failed in the U.S. but won a prize at the 1958 Brussels World's Fair. In 1975, in spite of all his box-office flops , he received the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 1984 the Directors Guild of America awarded him its highest honor, the D.W. Griffith Award. His reputation as a film maker has climbed steadily ever since.

You guys are great...so much interesting, smart stuff in all the comments. What can I add? Well, I saw it last night, and I was thinking about The Auteur Theory and Roland Barthes' thoughts about the one big book of which all books are a part. And, although I haven't seen Alphaville for years, I realized that the connections between these two films are important: the Mizraki score and the performance of Akim Tamiroff.Godard is such a great mannerist, and this film (Arkadin) is such a basic text for director - driven cinema. How can this film mean anything to anyone who doesn't understand the rage to create - against all odds, against one's self-destructive nature, against one's death wish? It is "breathless", truly. Scenes never give the impression of ending, everything is done in overdrive, people are constantly looming, dizzyingly moving in and out of shot; the grotesquerie of the bad acting rhymes with the grotesquerie of the costume set pieces and with that of the B movie Euro - freak character actors parading, one by one, in front of the camera for their star turns. "Feeding time" indeed! I saw Arkadin shortly after seeing Spielberg's Munich. The only similarity is in the constant change of location. But where in the Spielberg this functions as a celebration of money, budget and the power of illusion, here each location is both overcrowded and threadbare. The Munich of Arkadin is a bombed-out nightmare with traces of its former elegance. The Europe of this film is so haunted and sleepwalking; the world of this film is made up of bits and scraps.

The fact that Arkadin connects closely to Kane or Quinlan is obvious and certainly interesting. Although it should seem obvious at this late date that Welles has patterns and themes that reoccur throughout his films. Does this fact still illuminate anything? If anybody questions the fact that Welles is an artist...well, this film will just add to their confusion. But for us believers this film can function like the ritual suffering of the penitents in the film. It hurts so good!

This is a highly uneven but interesting mystery from Mercury Productions and writer-director Orson Welles. Two-bit American hustler Guy Van Stratten (Robert Arden) searches for a mysterious, super-rich man named Gregory Arkadin (Orson Welles) in hopes of getting some money from him, one way or another. Surprisingly, Arkadin confesses to Guy that he suffers from amnesia, and he hires Guy to research Arkadin's past to fill in the blanks of his past. Guy suspects there's more to the story when those he interviews start showing up dead.

This movie is a mess, but it's a fascinating mess. The movie was taken out of Welles' hands in the editing phase and was released in various cuts all over the world over the course of a decade or more. The version I watched was assembled from all of the various versions, and supposedly most closely resembles what Welles wanted. It's still a slightly confusing jumble, but it's entertaining. It's unlike most movies of the mid 50's, with rapid edits, odd camera angles, and the aforementioned narrative structure utilizing flashbacks.

The sound is either mostly or all post-dub, which also adds to the disorienting effect. This movie has a lot of flaws (several shots are out of focus, Welles' fake nose looks terrible), but I found it an intriguing mystery, and I was never quite certain what was coming, which is exceedingly rare these days. Plus, the many brief appearances of classic character actors, such as AkimTamiroff, Katina Paxinou, Mischa Auer, and Michael Redgrave, all playing bizarre and eccentric characters, is amusing.

To get the full value out of Arkadin, i recommend you only see it once you've seen most other Welles pictures, from the Good (Kane, Ambersons, Trial, Falstaff, Touch of Evil), The Bad... okay, they're all still interesting, i wouldn't call any of them bad, but some of them were more marred by production conditions (Othello, Macbeth) or cutting by the studio (Lady from Shanghai) than others. If you've fallen in love with Welles' brilliant pictures, seen the times when he wasn't able to realise his ambitions, and heard about all his unfinished films and seen the tantalising segments from some of them (notably, for me, Merchant of Venice and famously The Other Side of the Wind), you'll appreciate that we were able to see Mr Arkadin at all!

So while i know there is so much to admire in Arkadin, that each frame is aching with Wellesian visual beauty (which is closer to unusual/strangeness than classical beauty), i know that most people, especially Wellesian newbies, will find Arkadin inaccessible. The fact that it is quite difficult to follow, and its dialogue is often hard to understand, is made worse by the fact that its picture and soundtrack are in bad condition on all available video/dvd releases. The other notable thing about Arkadin is that it is available in different forms (like most Welles movies). Welles' initial Arkadin must have been quite disconcerting indeed. Like they usually did, the studio cut a fair portion of it, but still left it in its flashback form (which varies from one to two party scenes). Later on, someone, i don't know who, reordered Arkadin so it played out in chronological order. This is the version available for wide release in America, with Tony Curtis (for what reason i don't know) doing an introduction, and talking more about Kane than Arkadin. The only australian release of Arkadin at present seems to be the chronological one, so if i ever get my hands on the others i may write separate reviews on those.

And no it is not sufficient to sum Arkadin up as a poor remake of Kane. It has only superficial elements in common with Kane (mystery into true nature of old man, flashbacks), but visually it is nothing like Kane. I always put off watching it because i was upset by people's saying it was a poor man's Citizen Kane - but whoever said that can't have seen the same Arkadin i did.

For Welles fans there is so much to marvel at. It is one brilliant, original frame after another. I just couldn't watch it slow enough. I had to pause it about every ten seconds to wind back and watch something again and go "oooh" and "aaah." It also has sexy Patricia Medina and a great score.

Some favourite scenes:

The tracking back shot of Van Stratten (Robert Arden) going up the steps to Zouk's place (Akim Tamiroff).

The scenes of snow falling outside Zouk's place.

Every scene where Van Stratten is interviewing an eccentric character from Arkadin's past. All are such wonderful scenes. Especially the flea circus master scene.

The rocking boat scene is incredible. The sexual energy of voluptuous, erect-nippled Patricia Medina, stumbling around the room, giggling and taunting Arkadin as the rocking boat mirrors the shakiness of her drunken state.

There is a magestic tracking shot in the party scene, which takes place in a sort of ballroom resembling the Ambersons' ballroom, where i believe Welles almost made up for the studio's cutting up a similar sweeping unbroken tracking shot through the room in the ballroom scene in Magnificent Ambersons.