THE COMPLETE MR. ARKADIN (aka Confidential Report)
Criterion, $49.95
Take a fresh-bought card deck, crack the seal, and fan the cards. Savor the symmetry. Now, shuffle the deck and look again: Chaos, but a whole new game.
Long before directing movies, Orson Welles was a prodigious magician, always carrying a card deck (and the occasional rabbit) in his pocket with which to dazzle his audience. He knew the value of smoke and mirrors, carrying that sensibility over to his film work. Shot throughout Europe in 1954, Mr. Arkadin (aka Confidential Report) tells the tangled tale of mysterious billionaire Gregory Arkadin (a bearded, be-wigged, putty-nosed Welles), who hires an American smuggler (Robert Arden) to investigate his own past, claiming amnesia. After producer Louis Dolivet confiscated the footage for reshaping, seemingly everybody but the director had a hand in the editing. “That film was taken away from me completely and was totally destroyed in the cutting,” Welles lamented. “That was the real disaster of my life.”
The Complete Mr. Arkadin is, of course, a misnomer. At least five varying versions of the film exist (three included here). Some changes are nearly subliminal: an alternate take, a reshaped flashback or looped voiceover (Welles provided no fewer than 18 of the voices.) Comparing the differences points up both the audacity of Welles’ cinematic sleight of hand and his unfortunate tendency to blame others for his own bad choices. His magic, though, is always manifest. Arkadin is an unfinished card trick, but a predictably dazzling one. Attempting to reconstruct the director’s never-defined vision of the film, Criterion has assembled a “comprehensive version” – a patchwork quilt of various prints, using Welles’ often conflicting statements as a tenuous guideline. The Complete Mr. Arkadin offers a bounty of extras, including audio commentaries on all versions, the complete novel (written by Welles or not, take your pick), and a revealing series of outtakes showing Welles directing – petulant, precise, bullying. The ultimate Arkadin? No: Welles still had that conjuring trick up his sleeve when he died. But he did leave behind a maddeningly cut deck. Pick a card, any card. They’re all jokers.
ALSO OUT NOW
Laurel & Hardy Collection (TCM Archives, $39.95): Two-disc set containing two early L&H features for Hal Roach, 1933’s operetta spoof The Devil’s Brother and 1935’s Bonnie Scotland. Not the team’s best, but the bonus material, including long unseen clips from Hollywood Revue of 1929 and 1937’s Pick a Star, is a delight.
The Laurel & Hardy Collection (20th Century Fox, $34.95): After leaving the Roach studios, the aging team was signed by 20th Century Fox, who took away their pancake make-up, their personas, and their creative freedom, saddling them with formulaic scripts and clueless directors. This set contains three of their features from the Forties, Great Guns, Jitterbugs (featuring Stan in drag), and the aptly titled The Big Noise. Not another fine mess – just a mess.
This article appears in May 5 • 2006.