MR. ARKADIN Movie Review

Confidential Report

As in Citizen Kane, Orson Welles here looks at and stars in the story of another ruthless millionaire, but Gregory Arkadin (Welles) isn't anxious to admit the unsavory source of his wealth. Also as in Kane, an outsider (Robert Arden) is our investigator/guide into the man's mysterious world, examining the trail of his life through strange—and strangely photographed—witnesses such as Mischa Auer playing the owner of a seedy little flea circus. By any conventional standards, Mr. Arkadin (also known as Confidential Report) is a mess. Conventional standards, however, make little sense when looking at much of Welles's post-Kane work, particularly a film that took two years to shoot and seven years to edit (it finally saw the light of day in 1962). During that editing process, it became impossible to round up all the actors for post-synchronization of the soundtrack; Welles's solution was to rival the vocal productivity of Mel Blanc by dubbing 18 of the soundtrack's voices himself. Mr. Arkadin remains a nightmarish, highly personal, bizarrely fascinating failure. With Michael Redgrave, Akim Tamiroff, and Katina Paxinou. (A reworked reissue a la Touch of Evil is reputed to be in the works.)

NEXT STOP … Citizen Kane, The Lady from Shanghai, The Immortal Story

1955 99m/B GB Orson Welles, Akim Tamiroff, Michael Redgrave, Patricia Medina, Mischa Auer; D: Orson Welles; C: Jean Bourgoin. VHS, LV HMV, HTV, HEG