The ill-fated "Mr. Arcadin"

Published: April 27, 2016

Recently, when I re-watched orson Wells's work, some of the film's reviews have been readjusted. "Citizen Kane", "Amberson Family", "The Robbery", "Midnight Bells" are still in the first-class ranks, once felt that "Mr. Arcatine" is at most second-rate, but now feels that its best version may enter the first-class.

Poster of "Mr. Arcatine"

Why say the best version? Because there are countless versions of this film before and after, we can only see some of them so far. The large number of versions is a feature of Wells's film career, which makes him helpless.

It was before Othello was released, because filming was once again sold out – which was the norm during Wells's wanderings in Europe, and his filming stopped and he had to raise money everywhere – Wells got himself a new job as the BBC radio drama The Adventures of Harry Lime, and we know that Harry Lem was the evil character wells had played in the British film The Third Man (directed by Carol Reed). Wells loved Lemme so much that he wrote several episodes of the radio drama in one sitting, including one in which Lem met a mysterious rich man who searched for the past for the poor man suffering from amnesia, but he later discovered that this was not the case.

Wells realized that the story could be adapted into a grow-up film, and it would be a very thrilling, blockbuster film. After ending Othello, Wells began the project, of course, making some appropriate changes to the original, changing Harry Lem's name to Guy van Stratton, a man who fell in love with the daughter of the rich man Arcadin, so that there was no direct relationship with The Third Man.

Orson Wells in his youth

But where does the money for filming come from? At that time, the prodigy aura had long since receded from wells' heads, "Amberson" was a disastrous failure, the very commercial "Stranger" box office was tepid, and "Miss Shanghai" had a bland response. For Hollywood, Wells is no longer the genius kid who said he couldn't do anything about making Citizen Kane, and no producer will be willing to throw even a penny at the middle-aged fat man.

Luckily, Wells met producer Louis Durivi. In the mid-40s, they were all enthusiastically cheering for left-wing political movements in the United States, and time passed, the House Committee on Non-American Activities (HUAC) distributed subpoenas like a playing card, Wells wandered Europe for many years, and Du Rivi settled in Paris. Durivi was in business but had a keen interest in film (he later helped Jacques Tati make My Uncle), and he and Wells, who met again, decided to find money to shoot him the new play. However, the two agreed on three chapters of the law, and Wells had to deliver by Christmas 1954. At that time, there was still more than half a year left, and according to the shooting cycle of the general film, there was no problem at all.

But you can't calculate Orson Wells by common sense...

Things really didn't go as smoothly as expected. Not only did Wells travel non-stop on location in Spain, Italy, France and Germany — because van Stratton was also looking for insiders in various countries — he also took time out to appear in several films!

Wells appeared on many movies, television, radio, and stages in the 1950s, playing large and small protagonists, supporting roles, dragon sets, and even dubbing, in order to earn a salary and then invest in the films he directed.

Wells himself plays Mr. Arcatine

Mr. Akadin is played by Wells himself, and like many wells directors and starring characters, this is a "big" character who has lost his soul and is swallowed up by power. Robert Arden, who plays Van Stratton, is Wells' old partner on stage, while daughter Lena is played by Paula Morrie, who became Wells' third wife a year later.

Pre-shooting lasted eight months, much longer than most crews. Wells's personal habit was that editing took several times longer than pre-shooting, and if it did, it might not be completed in ten or eight years, let alone the deadline at the end of that year.

Wells later complained in his biography about Du Rivi, saying that the zealous but lay producer had hastily promised another Swiss funder to end the film in a completely impossible time. DuRivi was anxious to take care of the old tense, so he simply took all the film from Wells and handed it over to someone else to complete.

This was certainly not the first time in Wells' life that he had been stripped of editing rights, and it was by no means the last, but it was the most serious.

Poster of Citizen Kane

Several "Citizen Kane"-style flashbacks have been changed to linear narratives, and several scenes that play a key role in Mr. Akatin's personality have been cut down, in Wells's words, "completely ruined, not even comparable to what happened to The Abbesons.".

Wells's lifelong friendship with DuRiwei, the producer who "hurt him", went unparagraphed. There have been no less than seven versions of the film, and three versions have since been released on the Standard Collector's Edition DVD.

<b>Written by | Magasa (film researcher, film critic, book reviewer. Editor-in-chief of the electronic magazine Iris. ）</b>