Mr. Arkadin

As I mentioned in my review of Citizen Welles, Orson Welles made a film in the 1950s called, variously, Confidential Report and Mr. Arkadin. Welles did not have final cut, as the film was taken away from him. There are several versions out there, and none of them are authoritative. However, two brave editors, using Welles' notes and comments, tried to put together the "comprehensive version," the one that Welles may have been going for.

Criterion has a three-disc set with three different versions. I'm not enough of a Welles completist to view all three, so I looked at the "comprehensive" version, called Mr. Arkadin. It's flawed but fascinating, and eminently a Welles film, but is undone by some very poor performances.

The film begins with Guy Van Stratten (Robert Arden), fleeing for his life and visiting an old man, Jacob Zouk (Akim Tamiroff). He tells Zouk the story in flashback. Van Stratten is a small-time crook and adventurist living on a boat in Naples (and smuggling cigarettes). A man stumbles toward him, stabbed in the back, and a wooden-legged man seems to have committed the crime, and is shot down by police. The knifed man lives long to whisper two names to Arden's girlfriend (Patricia Medina)--Gregory Arkadin, and Sophie "something Russian."

Intrigued, Arden tries to get to know Arkadin through this daughter (Paolo Mori, who happened to be Mrs. Welles). Finally he meets the man at a masquerade, and it is Welles, heavily made up with a false nose and a Mephistopholean beard. Welles shows Arden a report on him, detailing his petty crimes and jail time. Arden spits back that what if a report were issued about Arkadin?

Arkadin then comes to Arden with a proposition--Arden should investigate him. It seems that Arkadin remembers nothing before 1927. He awoke with 200,000 Swiss francs in his pocket, and that was the start of is fortune. He is worried that something bad will turn up which will scotch a deal with the U.S. military. Arden takes him up on it, promising he will never seen Mori again.

What follows is an investigation that leads through many cities and exotic characters. The most vivid is Michael Redgrave as a pawn shop owner who sells Arden a variety of worthless objects for information. Runner-up is Mischa Auer as the operator of a flea circus. Eventually Arden finds Sophie in Mexico--it turns out Arkadin was one of a gang of ruthless criminals, and that Arkadin doesn't want his daughter to find out.

Mr. Arkadin is full of typical Welles touches, such as deep focus, and many shots filmed from low angles.There are some very long tracking shots, including one that goes through a wall, and much chiaroscuro. If one loses track of the plot it doesn't really matter, it's he mise en scene that's important.

Unfortunately, Arden gives one of the worst lead performances in a major film I've ever seen. He's terrible, and couldn't act his way out of a paper bag. Welles made a big mistake there. Medina is also pretty bad. Better is Mori, who got the part via nepotism but looks like a young Angelina Jolie (when she had short short hair) and at least has some charisma.

This is just another example of the bad fortune that Welles had in his film career. We'll never know what the final film should have looked like, but that the movie exists in relative obscurity isn't fair (I mean, I'm a fairly literate filmgoer, but I had never heard of it before). It's very much worth checking out.