Greenes Please don't spend money on this.

GazerRise Fantastic!

Lightdeossk Captivating movie !

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

SnoopyStyle 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.

ma-cortes Interesting but odd film about an amnesiac millionaire financier who hires an investigator to find his past . Screenwriter , filmmaker , star Welles adopting from his own novel and directing this strange flick , thematically similar to Citizen Kane . The novel and the screenplay were both based on an episode in the radio series, "The Lives of Harry Lime", in which Welles played his Harry Lime character as rather less villainous that he was in The third man . It deals with an American adventurer who investigates the past of mysterious tycoon Arkadin (Orson Welles) placing himself in grave danger . Guy (the Harry Lime character is renamed "Guy van Stratten" and is played by Robert Arden) finds it most pleasant to investigate Arkadin though his lovely daughter Raina (all of Paola Mori's dialogue was dubbed by Billie Whitelaw and Marlene Dietrich turned down the role), her father's idol. However Stratton learns that all the persons he asked about Arkadin are getting killed. Guy follows the descending and intriguing trail to a surprise final .This suspense movie contains intrigue , thrills , plot twists and layered dialog prevail . Excellent acting by the maestro Orson Welles playing the life of yet another ruthless millionaire, he stars a famed tycoon with a shady past , similarly to Citizen Kane . It stars newcomers actors , as the credits read "And introducing Paola Mori" who married Orson Welles ; however, she had been in at least four films prior to this ; the credits also imply the "And introducing" refers to Robert Arden as well, who also had had at least two credited big screen performances . Good support cast as Michael Redgrave as Burgomil , Patricia Medina as Mily , Akim Tamiroff as Jakob Zouk , Mischa Auer , Amparo Rivelles , Katina Paxinou as Sophie , Grégoire Aslan as Bracco , Peter van Eyck as Thaddeus and Suzanne Flon as Baroness Nagel ; but even the efforts of a cool cast couldn't help Welles turn this into a critical or commercial success . Filmed over two years around Europe , required seven years of post production , before finding distribution in 1962 . It has recently released a comprehensive three-DVD set of the film, featuring three versions: the "Corinth" version¨ that was generally regarded closest to Orson Welles's cut, "Confidential Report" or European cut, and the newly edited "Comprehensive" version. Each version contains a few shots or lines that are missing from the other two. Because the film was taken out of Welles' control in post-production, we will never know exactly what he had in mind for the complex flashback structure he spoke of later in his life. Mr. Arkadin was created from three episodes of the 1951-1952 radio program, The Lives of Harry Lime: Man of Mystery , Murder on the Rivera and Blackmail Is an Ugly Word. Arkadin is based mostly on the first of the three and centered on a character named Gregory Arkadian , primary characters and set-ups are taken from the other two episodes . Good cinematography in black and white by Jean Burgoin , as in Citizen Kane is plenty of oblique camera angles . Atmospheric and evocative musical score by Paul Misraki .Mr. Arkadin also titled Confidential Report was well directed by Orson Welles , a genius who had a large and problematic career . In 1938 he produced "The Mercury Theatre on the Air", famous for its broadcast version of "The War of the Worlds" . His first film to be seen by the public was Ciudadano Kane (1941), a commercial failure , but regarded by many as the best film ever made , along with his following movie , The magnificent Ambersons . He subsequently directed Shakespeare adaptation such as Macbeth , Othelo and Chimes at Midnight or Falstaff . Many of his next films were commercial flops and he exiled himself to Europe in 1948. In 1956 he directed Touch of evil (1958); it failed in the U.S. but won a prize at the 1958 Brussels World's Fair. In 1975, in spite of all his box-office flops , he received the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 1984 the Directors Guild of America awarded him its highest honor, the D.W. Griffith Award. His reputation as a film maker has climbed steadily ever since.

GManfred Prior to becoming a multimillionaire, the title character was the leader of an infamous gang in pre-WWII Poland. He hires an opportunist-drifter who breaks into his house to find out about his past, saying he has amnesia and can't remember anything, not even his real name.Sound intriguing? You bet. An interesting story? well, semi-interesting. It's festooned with plot holes and poor continuity, sorely in need of an editor. Plus, the main character represents what may be the worst casting job in the long history of Motion Pictures. His name is Robert Arden. Ever hear of him? Thought not. He was, in a word, dreadful. No subtlety, no nuance and wrecked this picture almost singlehandedly.Everybody wants to give Orson Welles and his genius their due. I think that is the main reason for many reviewers overrating this picture, and some of his genius is on display here, in fits and starts. Too often, however, his genius manifests itself in brief outbursts of megalomania as he postures and glowers before the camera in one of his too-frequent close-ups.The supporting cast ranges from excellent to superb, led by Akim Tamiroff and Katina Paxinou, both of whom had too brief appearances before the camera. As I said, there are flashes of brilliance, but not enough to pull this film up to a respectable rating. This is a seriously flawed movie.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU A film typical of 1955, the very heart of the Cold War. Orson Welles though manages to write a book and then make a film that exposes one of these rich men after WW2 who made a fortune during and after the war, and yet he succeeds in hardly mentioning the defeated side of that war who were the main customers and who knows what too of these men who came rich out of the war. We jump from Italy, to Spain, from Germany to England, from France to Poland and we only know that fishy people were used to accumulate that fortune and were eliminated for the police not to trace them to the order giver. After the war that Mr. Arkadin hires some kind of international private eye adventurer to find out what is being said about him in Europe. His real intention is to trace those who could be embarrassing if they started talking and then he eliminates them one after the other. The private eye has only one objective: to capture the love of the daughter of this rich man. Not simple, indeed. And the end is just fishy and unimaginable. The rotten rich man disappears in thin air over the communication system of an airport air control tower: he is speaking one second and he is gone the next and the plane he was coming in crashes and no body is in it. The private eye can go away with the rich daughter but does it mean it is finished. Of course not. These war time entrepreneurs are extremely good at disappearing to reappear later on with a good amount of money they had manage to store away in some Swiss safe heaven. The film is more disturbing than really thrilling and Orson Welles probably wanted it like that, mysterious, embarrassing and disquieting, but what's the next stop in the plot, sir? Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Paris 8 Saint Denis, University Paris 12 Créteil, CEGID