Mr. Arkadin (1955)

User Rating:

7.4/10   

Director:

Orson Welles

Writers:

Orson Welles (story)
Orson Welles (screenplay)

Release Date:

2 October 1962 (USA)

Genre:

Thriller | Crime | Mystery | Drama

Tagline:

Discovering the past can be murder...

Plot:

An American adventurer investigates the past of mysterious tycoon Arkadin...placing himself in grave danger.

Plot Keywords:

Smuggler | Tycoon | Adventurer | Amnesia | Castle

Cast

Orson Welles	...	Gregory Arkadin
Michael Redgrave	...	Burgomil Trebitsch
Patricia Medina	...	Mily
Akim Tamiroff	...	Jakob Zouk
Mischa Auer	...	The Professor
Paola Mori	...	Raina Arkadin
Katina Paxinou	...	Sophie
Grégoire Aslan	...	Bracco
Peter van Eyck	...	Thaddeus
Suzanne Flon	...	Baroness Nagel
Robert Arden	...	Guy Van Stratten
Jack Watling	...	Marquis of Rutleigh
Frédéric O'Brady	...	Oscar (as O'Brady)
Tamara Shayne	...	Woman in Apartment (as Tamara Shane)
Terence Longdon	...	Secretary (as Terence Langdon)

Also Known As:

Confidential Report (UK)
Dossier secret (France)
Mister Arkadin (Spain)
Monsieur Arkadin - Dossier secret (France)

Runtime:

93 min | France:95 min (Cannes Film Festival) | USA:98 min (TCM print) | USA:105 min (2006 Restored Version)

Country:

France | Spain | Switzerland

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Ultraviolet High Fidelity Sound System)

Certification:

Australia:PG | Finland:K-16 | UK:A (original rating) | UK:PG (re-rating) | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

France

Company:

Filmorsa

Trivia:

Marlene Dietrich turned down the rule of Raina Arkadin.

Goofs:

Miscellaneous: A shot near the end of the movie, with Raina resting her head on the steering wheel of her car, is extended by looping the film several times. This becomes obvious because a man's shadow keeps appearing and disappearing in a gate behind her.

Quotes:

Gregory Arkadin: Baroness, a fool is a man who pays twice for the same thing.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Brunnen (2005)

Soundtrack:

Saeta

Welles struggling against the odds

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.