Mr. Arkadin (first released in Spain, 1955), known in Britain as Confidential Report, is a French-Spanish-Swiss co-productionfilm noir, written and directed by Orson Welles and shot in several Spanish locations, including Costa Brava, Segovia, Valladolid, and Madrid. Filming took place throughout Europe in 1954, and scenes shot outside Spain include locations in London, Munich, Paris, the French Riviera, and at the Château de Chillon in Switzerland.
A small, fleet single engine plane flies empty across the daylight sky. A flashback voiceover begins to explain why, and who had been in it before it was abandoned.
Guy Van Stratten, a penny-ante American smuggler working the docks in Naples, observes a man being chased in the darkness, and, seemingly, improbably, his one-legged pursuer. The quarry falls to the ground, stabbed, gasping with his last breaths the names "Gregory Arkadin", a famous international tycoon, a dark "oligarch" of his day with a dark and mysterious past, and, merely, “Sophie”. Stratten and his girlfriend and accomplice Mily travel to Arkadin’s castle in Spain, seeking to discover how these clues can be transformed into money.
By striking up a friendship with Arkadin's mercurial daughter Raina, seemingly the only person for whom Arkadin feels affection, the womanizing Stratten gets himself invited inside. Arkadin has already learned of Stratten and Mily’s interest in him, and of the couple’s criminal history. Instead of turning them away he openly offers to pay Stratten $15,000 for uncovering information about his past, which he explains has been lost to amnesia. According to him, he woke up in a square in Switzerland in 1927 with 200,000 Swiss franks in his pocket and no memory whatever prior to that. He then parlayed this mysterious windfall into a new identity, enormous power, and uncountable wealth, but is troubled by not knowing who he was, and still is; Stratten impresses him as sufficiently enterprising, and ruthless, to find out, in, Arkadin demands, total secrecy. Always a user, Stratten continues to "romance" Raina, who plays at it to rebel against her overbearing - and disapproving - father.
Stratten starts scouring Europe for leads; Arkadin shanghais the clueless Mily on his yacht in order to learn Stratten's true motives. From interviews with a strange series of people—the proprietor of a flea circus, a Viennese junk-shop owner, an impoverished noblewoman in Paris, and a heroin addict he tortures with withdrawal—Stratten learns that the pre-1927 Arkadin was a prime mover in a sex trafficking ring in Warsaw, abducting girls and selling them into prostitution in South America. "Sophie" is the former madam and ringleader, from whom he stole his providential windfall. She proves to be a resigned, tolerant old woman living out her days as a recluse in Argentina, who remembers ex-boyfriend Arkadin with some affection and has no intention of publicizing his past.
Pulling telltales together, Stratten discovers that not only has Arkadin been following him and visiting all the witnesses, they all shortly end up dead - including Sophie. He confers with Raina, who startles him by revealing that her father does not have amnesia. Why was he hired, then, Stratten puzzles; and will he ever get paid?
He is compelled by Arkadin to attend the bully's Christmas Eve party in Munich, where he learns that he'd been being used as a cat's paw by his benefactor, who wished to permanently hide his criminal past from Raina, lest he lose both her love and adoration. Worse, Mily has turned up dead, and Stratten's been framed for her murder. Knowing he will die too if he cannot save the last living connection to Arkadin's past, Jakob Zouk, Stratten hastens to try to find him and spirit him away. Zouk, impoverished, terminally ill, and down to his last days, has no sympathy for Stratten; he shortly ends up murdered in Stratten's hotel room, with Stratten again framed.
Stratten makes a desperate new plan to flee to Arkadin's Spanish castle, tell all to Raina, and hole up there together in sanctuary. He buys the last seat on the last plane to Barcelona. Raina meets him there at the airport. Before Stratten can reveal his secret Arkadin arrives overhead in a rented plane. He commandeers the airport's P.A. system and commands Raina not to listen. With no time to explain why, Stratten exploits her rebellious side and convinces her to say simply "It's too late". Radio silence and an empty plane traversing the sky are all that follow.
Aware she'd been used by Stratten to save his own life, and always knowing her father had been corrupt, whatever his real identity, Raina wants nothing to do with the scorpion, Despairing, she accepts the overture of a mealy minor British noble she had spurned earlier for him and leaves with the milquetoast at the wheel of her sports car.
Stratten, who had gambled everything - even Mily - playing his hand for sheer greed, lost every single thing but his life, ending worse off than he had begun. An appropriate reward for both his conduct and character, the ending makes plain.
Additionally, Welles dubbed several vocal parts (including Mischa Auer's lines), and actress Billie Whitelaw dubbed Paola Mori's dialogue to cover her thick Italian accent.[2]
Production
The story was based on several episodes of the radio seriesThe Lives of Harry Lime, which in turn was based on the character that Welles portrayed in The Third Man.[3] The main inspiration for the plot was the episode entitled "Man of Mystery," though some elements may have been lifted from an episode of the radio show Ellery Queen entitled "The Case of the Number Thirty-One," chiefly the similar-sounding name George Arkaris, the mysterious birthplace, the French Riviera property, and the Spanish castle. Most of the other key elements for Arkadin's character come from a real-life arms dealer, Basil Zaharoff.[4]
In an interview for the BBC's Arena series first shown in 1982, Welles described Mr. Arkadin as the "biggest disaster" of his life because of his loss of creative control.[5] The film was not released in the United States until 1962.[6]
Countess Paola Di Girfalco, who played the role of Arkadin's daughter under her stage name of Paola Mori, become Welles's third wife in 1955, some time during the film's production.[7] The film started Welles's longtime relationship with Spain, where he lived for several periods in his life.
Released in some parts of Europe as Confidential Report, this film shares themes and stylistic devices with The Third Man (1949).[citation needed]
Multiple versions of the film
Several differing versions of the film were released. In his 1991 essay "The Seven Arkadins", film historian Jonathan Rosenbaum identified seven different versions of the story, and since its initial publication, two more versions have emerged, including a novel and a stage play. When Welles missed an editing deadline, producer Louis Dolivet took the film out of his hands and released several edits of the film, none of which were approved by Welles. Adding to the confusion is a novel of the same title that was credited to Welles, though Welles claimed that he was unaware of the book's existence until he saw a copy in a bookshop.[citation needed] Welles's friend Maurice Bessy, a French screenwriter, is generally considered to be the author of the novel.
The "seven versions"
In his 1991 essay "The Seven Arkadins", film historian Jonathan Rosenbaum identified seven different versions of the story, and since the essay's initial publication, two more versions have emerged.[8]
Pre-film
1. Three episodes of the radio series The Lives of Harry Lime, written, directed by and starring Welles. The basic plot of a wealthy Mr. Arkadian (spelt with three As in this version) commissioning a confidential report on his former life can be found in the episode "Man of Mystery" (first broadcast 11 April 1952), while the episode "Murder on the Riviera" (first broadcast 23 May 1952) and the final episode "Greek Meets Greek" (first broadcast 25 July 1952) both contain plot elements repeated in the film. Note that in the film, the popular Harry Lime character from The Third Man is replaced by the less sympathetic Guy Van Stratten, since Welles did not own the copyright to the Lime character as character rights had been bought by Harry Alan Towers for the Lives of Harry Lime radio series.[9]
2. Masquerade, an early version of the screenplay of what would eventually become Mr. Arkadin, has substantial differences from the film versions. The screenplay follows a strictly chronological structure rather than the back-and-forth structure of the film. Many of the scenes in the film are set in different countries, and a lengthy sequence in Mexico is entirely missing from the final film.
Different edits of the film released in Welles' life
Crucially, none of the versions available before 2006 contained all the footage found in the others; each had some elements missing from other versions, and each has substantial editing differences from the others.
3. The main Spanish-language version of Mr. Arkadin (93 mins) was filmed back-to-back with the English-language version and was the first to be released, premiering in Madrid in March 1955. Although the cast and crew were largely the same, two characters were played by Spanish actors: Amparo Rivelles plays Baroness Nagel and Irene Lopez Heredia plays Sophie Radzweickz Martinez. The two scenes with the actresses were reshot in Spanish, but all others had Spanish dubbing over English dialogue. This version credits Robert Arden as "Bob Harden".[citation needed]
4. There is a second, longer Spanish-language cut of Mr. Arkadin, which was unknown to Rosenbaum at the time he wrote The Seven Arkadins. (He confessed in the essay to having seen only brief clips of one version.) This version credits Robert Arden as "Mark Sharpe".[10]
5. Confidential Report (98 mins), the most common European release print of Mr. Arkadin, premiered in London in August 1955. Differences to this version include off-screen narration from Van Stratten. Rosenbaum speculates that the editing of this version was based on an early draft of Welles' screenplay, as its exposition is far simpler than that of the "Corinth" version.
6. The "Corinth" version (99 mins) is named after Corinth Films, the initial U.S. distributor of the film.[11] Until the 2006 re-edit, it was believed to be the closest version to Welles' conception. Peter Bogdanovich discovered its existence in 1961 and secured its first U.S. release in 1962, seven years after alternative versions of the film were released in Europe.
7. The most widely seen version of Mr. Arkadin (95 mins) is the U.S. release version which entirely removes the film's flashback structure and presents a simpler, linear narrative. Rosenbaum describes it as "the least satisfactory version", which is a "clumsily truncated" edit of the "Corinth" version, often editing out half-sentences, making some dialogue incomprehensible.[12]
This version is often erroneously thought of as being in the public domain but as the film is a European co-production its copyright does not expire until 2068, seventy years after the 1998 death of the last surviving co-creator, composer Paul Misraki.[13] The vast majority of DVD releases are very poor quality bootlegs of the US version.
An 8th - Novelization
8. The novel Mr. Arkadin was first published in French in Paris in 1955, and then in English in 1956, both in London and New York. Welles was credited as author, and the book's dustjacket boasted: "It is perhaps surprising that Orson Welles … has not written a novel before."[citation needed]
"I didn't write one word of that novel. Nor have I ever read it," Welles told Peter Bogdanovich. "Somebody wrote it in French to be published in serial form in the newspapers. You know — to promote the picture. I don't know how it got under hardcovers, or who got paid for that."[14] It was serialised in the U.K. newspaper the Daily Express in 1955.
Welles always denied authorship of the book, and French actor-writer Maurice Bessy, who is credited as having translated the book into French, was long rumoured to be the real author. Rosenbaum suggested that the book was written in French and then translated into English, as lines from the script were approximations that seemed to have been translated from English to French and back to English. Research by film scholar François Thomas in the papers of Louis Dolivet has uncovered documentary proof that Bessy was indeed the author.[15]
The 9th - Criterion edit (2006)
9. Whilst no version of the film can claim to be definitive as Welles never finished editing the film, this version (105 mins) is likely the closest to Welles's original vision,[16] though the creators of this restored version express their doubts as to the "correctness" of altering another artist's work. It was compiled in 2006 by Stefan Drössler of the Munich Film Museum and Claude Bertemes of the Cinémathèque municipale de Luxembourg, with both Peter Bogdanovich and Jonathan Rosenbaum giving technical assistance. It uses all available English-language footage, and attempts to follow Welles's structure and editing style as closely as possible and also incorporates his comments over the years on where the other editions of the film went wrong. However, it remains an approximation; for instance, Welles remarked that his version of the film began with a woman's body (Mily) on a beach, including a close-up that makes her identity apparent. Whilst the Criterion edit restores the film opening on a woman's body on the beach, only a long shot exists (taken from the Corinth version) in which it is unclear whose body it is; no close-up of Mily could be used, as the footage no longer exists.[citation needed]
The Criterion Collection release includes the following:
Japanese film director Shinji Aoyama listed Confidential Report as one of the greatest films of all time. In 2012 he said, "No other movie is destructive as Confidential Report, which gives me different emotions every time I see it. Achieving this kind of indetermination in a film is the highest goal that I always hope for, but can never achieve."[18]
Filmmaker Christopher Nolan stated in his Criterion Top 10 from 2013, "No one could make much of a case for Welles’ abortive movie overall" but that the film contains "heartbreaking glimpses of the great man’s genius".[19]
George Orson Welles was an American director, actor, writer, producer, and magician who is remembered for his innovative work in film, radio, and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time.
Peter Bogdanovich was an American director, writer, actor, producer, critic, and film historian. He started his career as a film critic for Film Culture and Esquire before becoming a prominent filmmaker as part of the New Hollywood movement. He received accolades including a BAFTA Award and Grammy Award, as well as nominations for two Academy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards.
The Third Man is a 1949 film noir directed by Carol Reed, written by Graham Greene, and starring Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Orson Welles and Trevor Howard, set in post-war Vienna. The film centres on American Holly Martins (Cotten) who arrives in the city to accept a job with his friend Harry Lime (Welles), only to learn that Lime has died. Martins decides to stay in Vienna and investigate his death.
The Adventures of Harry Lime is an old-time radio programme produced in the United Kingdom during the 1951 to 1952 season. Orson Welles reprises his role of Harry Lime from the celebrated 1949 film The Third Man. The radio series is a prequel to the film, and depicts the many misadventures of con-artist Lime in a somewhat lighter tone than that of the film.
F for Fake is a 1973 docudrama film co-written, directed by, and starring Orson Welles who worked on the film alongside François Reichenbach, Oja Kodar, and Gary Graver. Initially released in 1974, it focuses on Elmyr de Hory's recounting of his career as a professional art forger; de Hory's story serves as the backdrop for a meandering investigation of the natures of authorship and authenticity, as well as the basis of the value of art. Far from serving as a traditional documentary on de Hory, the film also incorporates Welles's companion Oja Kodar, hoax biographer Clifford Irving and Orson Welles as himself. F for Fake is sometimes considered an example of a film essay.
Jonathan Rosenbaum is an American film critic and author. Rosenbaum was the head film critic for The Chicago Reader from 1987 to 2008, when he retired. He has published and edited numerous books about cinema and has contributed to such notable film publications as Cahiers du cinéma and Film Comment.
The Cat's Meow is a 2001 historical drama film directed by Peter Bogdanovich, and starring Kirsten Dunst, Eddie Izzard, Edward Herrmann, Cary Elwes, Joanna Lumley, Jennifer Tilly, and Ronan Vibert. The screenplay by Steven Peros is based on his 1997 play of the same title, which was inspired by the mysterious death of film mogul Thomas H. Ince that occurred on William Randolph Hearst's yacht during a weekend cruise celebrating Ince's birthday in November 1924. Among those in attendance were Hearst's longtime companion and film actress Marion Davies, fellow actor Charlie Chaplin, writer Elinor Glyn, columnist Louella Parsons, and actress Margaret Livingston. The film provides a speculative assessment on the unclear manner of Ince's death.
Othello is a 1951 tragedy directed and produced by Orson Welles, who also adapted the Shakespearean play and played the title role. Recipient of the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film at the 1952 Cannes Film Festival, the film was distributed by United Artists when it was released in the United States in 1955. Othello was filmed on location over a three-year period in Morocco, Venice, Tuscany and Rome as well as at the Scalera Studios in Rome.
The Other Side of the Wind is a 2018 satirical drama film co-written, co-edited, and directed by Orson Welles, and posthumously released in 2018 after 48 years in development. The film stars John Huston, Bob Random, Peter Bogdanovich, Susan Strasberg, and Oja Kodar.
Portrait of Gina, or Viva Italia is a 1958 documentary film by Orson Welles. It was funded by ABC TV. Around 30 minutes long, it follows a similar style to The Fountain of Youth (1958) and F for Fake (1973).
Robert Arden was a British-American film, television and radio actor born in London. He worked and lived mostly in the United Kingdom, where he specialized in playing American characters.
Orson Welles (1915–1985) was an American director, actor, writer, and producer who is best remembered for his innovative work in radio, theatre and film. He is widely considered one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time.
This is Orson Welles is a 1992 book by Orson Welles and Peter Bogdanovich that comprises conversations between the two filmmakers recorded over several years, beginning in 1969. The wide-ranging volume encompasses Welles's life and his own stage, radio, and film work as well as his insights on the work of others. The book was edited after Welles's death, at the request of Welles's longtime companion and professional collaborator, Oja Kodar. Jonathan Rosenbaum drew from several incomplete drafts of the manuscript and many reel-to-reel tapes, most of which had already been transcribed. Much of the dialogue, however, had been rewritten by Welles, often in several drafts.
Don Quixote is an unfinished film project written, co-produced and directed by Orson Welles. Principal photography took place between 1957 and 1969. Test footage was filmed as early as 1955, second-unit photography was done as late as 1972, and Welles was working on the film intermittently until his death in 1985. The film was eventually edited by Jesús Franco and was released in 1992, to mixed reviews.
The Miracle of St. Anne was a short film, now lost, made by Orson Welles. It served as a prelude to the play The Unthinking Lobster, which was written and directed by Welles as part of a collection of two one-act plays performed under the banner title of The Blessed and the Damned. The film consisted of the rushes (dailies) for a Biblical epic that was a film-within-the-play.
Nella terra di Don Chisciotte is an Italian-language documentary travelogue series about Spain, made by Orson Welles. It began filming in 1961, but did not air until 1964. The series follows Welles' travels around Spain, and was narrated by Arnoldo Foà. The series was made for Radiotelevisione Italiana (RAI-TV). Co-starring with Welles were his Italian wife Paola Mori, and their young daughter Beatrice Welles.
Paola di Gerfalco, Contessa di Gerfalco, better known by her professional name Paola Mori, was an Italian actress and aristocrat, and the third and last wife of Orson Welles.
The Citizen Kane trailer is a four-minute, self-contained, "making of" promotional short film by Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre, released in 1940 to promote the film Citizen Kane. Unlike other standard theatrical trailers of the era, it did not feature any footage of the actual film itself, but was a wholly original pseudo-documentary piece. It is considered by numerous film scholars such as Simon Callow, Joseph McBride and Jonathan Rosenbaum to be a standalone short film, rather than a conventional "trailer", and to represent an important stage in developing Welles's directorial style.
Renzo Lucidi was an Italian film editor who worked on more than sixty films between 1940 and 1979. He worked with Orson Welles several times, including editing Othello (1951) and Mr. Arkadin (1955).
Beatrice Giuditta Welles is an American former child actress, known for her roles in the film Chimes at Midnight (1966) and the documentary travelogue In the Land of Don Quixote (1964). The daughter of American filmmaker Orson Welles and Italian actress Paola Mori, she is a former model, radio and TV personality, founder of a cosmetics line and designer of handbags and jewelry.
↑ Miller, John M. (19 April 2005). "Mr. Arkadin (Aka Confidential Report)". www.tcm.com. Retrieved 10 March 2022. Paola Mori...spoke English only through a thick accent (her voice in this film was dubbed by Billie Whitelaw)...It is also disconcerting to hear Welles dubbing several actors in the film - not just the bit parts, but major performers like Auer.
↑ Jonathan Rosenbaum, "The Seven Arkadins", Jonathan Rosenbaum (ed.), Discovering Orson Welles, (University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, California, 2007) pp.146-62
↑ The existence of a second Spanish-language cut is mentioned in Joseph McBride, Whatever Happened to Orson Welles? A portrait of an independent career (UNiversity of Kentucky Press, Lexington, Kentucky, 2006) p.117
↑ Jonathan Rosenbaum, "The Seven Arkadins", Jonathan Rosenbaum (ed.), Discovering Orson Welles, (University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, California, 2007) pp.147, 159. Note that in the original article, Rosenbaum erroneously believed this version to be an edit of "Confidential Report" rather than the "Corinth" version. The updated introduction to the 2007 reprint of the article corrects this mistake.
↑ New introduction, Jonathan Rosenbaum, "The Seven Arkadins", Jonathan Rosenbaum (ed.), Discovering Orson Welles, (University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, California, 2007) p.147
↑ "THE ESSENTIAL ORSON WELLES - MR. ARKADIN". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 2015. [...] the most comprehensive version in existence, reedited by the Filmmuseum München after Welles's passing to restore the film closer to his intended vision.
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