The following article was partially written as a way of conserving space
while editing This Is Orson Welles (1991). A particular problem I had
throughout that project was having more material that I wanted to use
than I had room for. So I figured that if I could write and publish articles
elsewhere that incorporated portions of this material, all I had to do in the
book was allude to them.
Mr. Arkadin has always been the most difficult to research of the
Welles films that were finished in some form while he was alive —
partially because it remained such a painful memory to Welles due
to his friendship with Louis Dolivet, the producer, that he avoided
discussing it. Indeed, there was barely any material at all about it
in the tapes and drafts for This Is Orson Welles that I had
to work with. So as I tried to expand what I had via research,
I eventually hit upon the idea of publishing a piece in Film
Comment. (This appeared in January-February 1992.)
By necessity, much of what I included in this article was provisional.
(The same applies to a lesser extent to the dual commentary I
recorded with James Naremore in early 2005 to the film’s “Corinth
version” [no. Read more