Hammerman Ikon

Hammerman Ikon Film Guide

Mr. Arkadin / Confidential Report
1955
**
Director: Orson Welles
Cast: Orson Welles, Robert Arden, Paola Mori, Akim Tamiroff, Michael Redgrave

The words of a dying man lead an American smuggler to Gregory Arkadin, a business magnate who hires the man to investigate his own enigmatic past. The story is based on the radio show The Lives of Harry Lime (the character Orson Welles played in The Third Man) and the film is structured like his masterpiece Citizen Kane. Sadly this clumsy and uninteresting drama looks like a B-film made by a hack. This European co-production was shot across on the continent on a low budget, and it certainly shows in the technically substandard quality. The film comes in at least five different edits.