Mr. Arkadin (1955)

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Orson Welles hits and runs yet again with this over-everything mess. This fellow wasted his talent by trying to make movies for himself with little regard for the viewing public - who would eventually have to part with their hard earned cash - to sit in picture houses all over the world wondering what could continue to go so awfully wrong. Too often we see raves for this fellows indulgences from other movie makers like Scorsese, Spielberg, Tarantino, and Bogdanovich, they seem to belong to a 'self congratulatory movie club', specialising in a pat-each-other-on-the-back style of praise. If Wells had concentrated on his talents as a performer, director of photography or screenplay adaptor and collaborated with more controlled movie makers (ie; Carol Reed, George Stevens, William Wyler, etc) we may have experienced more masterpieces. Instead, we have a steady rollout of sorry 'could-have-been' or unfinished titles from an eccentric, compulsive egotist. Looking at this movie is an eye-rolling experience many balanced movie lovers will tire of very early - in fact, my audience either slept of walked out. Camera angles for unimportant scenes were so overly staged it detracted from what the scenes simply set out to convey. Less would have been more for any movie maker in control of their project. All this might work for those bent on idolising a fallen one or two hit wonder. Wells seemed bent on destroying his obvious creative giftedness with unregulated egocentric opulence. Little wonder producers were forced to take control of his projects before they were all sent to the poorhouse. If not yet seen, watch it for a mostly excellent cast (except for the main lead!) being wasted within excess overindulgence. For a great movie experience look again at Citizen Kane - then consider that a young Orson, first time movie maker, was blessed with some of the finest creative film talent in the world to teach and carry him over the bumps... Innovative master cinematographer: Gregg Toland ~ brilliant writer: Herman Mankiewicz, assisted by John Houseman ~ experienced first assistant director: Edward Donahue ~ Editor: Robert Wise ~ executive in charge of production: Pandro S. Berman. These people would continue to make successful movies throughout their careers. When Orson distanced himself from the likes of these talented folk and took over the reins himself, it all began to fall over. There are many other master movie makers to honour - who have been quietly cast aside for the sake of relative failures and, this appears to be mostly instigated by others enamoured with their own self importance. Take a closer look and judge for yourself.

American Guy Van Stratten (Robert Arden) smuggled cigarettes in Europe. He encounters murdered Bracco at the docks who whispers two valuable names to Mily. She revealed one name Gregory Arkadin (Orson Welles) to everybody while Guy is arrested for smuggling. He uses Arkadin's daughter Raina to get to her father. Mily says the second name is a woman's but she'd forgotten and later remembered as Sophie something. Guy tries to blackmail Arkadin. Arkadin hires him to recover his past prior to 1927 and claims to have amnesia.I like the premise and I like the first half. Orson Welles is putting in all of his style into this movie. The story does take a lot of twists and turns. Honestly, I'm lost half of the time trying to figure out who's who in this movie. It's convoluted and confusing. The overall effect is a nightmarish tone in a Kafkaesque world.

After an extremely pretentious opening quote, followed by an opening curio about an empty airplane, the story gets rolling as a very talky palooka (some b-movie star) shows up in an attic with great urgency to entreat a man to exit the premises fast, because a third man is coming to kill him. Then he launches into a very long, convoluted explanation (none of which is interesting) of the story so far, which goes on and on and on ...one wonders where the killer is. This crappy device eats up half the movie! The story drags on so long that the would-be savior, when interrupted, barks at the attic-dweller, "I'll tell the story my own way!!" Oh there's time for a whole 'story,' is there? Directness and urgency are not qualities found in Mr. Arkadin, The Stranger, Touch of Evil, Lady from Shanghai, etc., In Arkadin (as in most Welles movies including Kane and the Third Man) he plays the amoral heavy, the climax usually coming when he belatedly explains his outsider philosophy.Mr Arkadin doesn't work. It's worse than incoherent, it's a dumb, showy movie. Welles understands everything about film-making, and nothing about narrative structure. He is so anxious to make every single moment filmic that any larger goal is lost. He will always sacrifice the overall movie in favor of a pile of virtuoso moments that don't assemble; and his drama is limited to unaffecting histrionics. Everything is visually striking but nothing is meaningful; the scenes don't add up to a coherent movie, and the shots don't add up to coherent scenes. More is more with Welles, and if it's visually slick, it must be the right choice. Can you find the through-line in this Mannerist mess? And if you can, do you care about any of it? Does it engage your mind, or just your eyes? In aiming high, Welles neglects the basics about what choices might make a movie stupid. Every development that's supposed to deepen the story instead deepens the nonsense. He does himself no favors with his preference for pointlessly elaborate, antiquated plots. He seems to buy his plot by the pound. The movie shoots itself in the foot three or four times a minute; sometimes by piling genre clichés on top of genre clichés; sometimes from craving another prettily composed shot of something (cue the castle!). The movie is packed with inept, eye-rolling unsubtle-ties.Frequently out of necessity, but just as likely due to lack of discipline, Welles treats film as a medium he can re-conceive after it's in the can. It's an odd, intriguing approach; but all of his movies end up as chaotic and uninteresting as Arkadin, despite continually striking camera work. Arkadin is definitely a title to rent (and important to know about) but it defies engagement. It's a shame he never bothered to write anything coherent after 1942, which to me, only supports the now disfavored Pauline Kael position that Welles could not have written the uncluttered, disciplined Citizen Kane.

After seeing Gregoire Aslan knifed on a dock and hearing a couple of last words like Sophia and Mr. Arkadin, Robert Arden and girl friend Patricia Medina know at least part of it.Mr. Arkadin refers to the mysterious gazillionaire played by Orson Welles. However Sophia is as elusive at first as the mysterious 'rosebud' in Citizen Kane.Welles seeing that Arden is a man of wit and resource in the seamier side of life, hires him to find out about Sophia. In fact the story that Welles gives Arden is that before 1927 when he found himself in Zurich, Switzerland with several million francs, he has amnesia and has no memory of his past.It's obviously a lie because one of the reasons that Arkadin is so mysterious is that he has steadfastly refused to be photographed. Not something someone would normally do unless they had a lot to hide.Still Arden takes the assignment and it leads to some startling answers and puts Arden's life in peril.Welles came up short with Mr. Arkadin. It's an intriguing story and has some good performances by the cast members already mentioned and people like Mischa Auer, Akim Tamiroff, Michael Redgrave, and Katina Paxinou from Welles's past. Problem is that Welles seems to be using a lot more in his bag of tricks than is necessary to tell the tale.A little to arty for art's sake. Still it's an interesting story and well acted.