Some Reactions to the Region 2 Blu-ray from Carlotta (spoilers)

As a film, "Mr. Arkadin" is generally pretty ragged. In this case the guerilla film-making didn't miraculously result in the kind of dazzling polish on display in Welles' "Othello" . There are lots of what you'd call Wellesian moments - tilt-a-whirl visuals, unexpected rhythms. Those things that would probably cause interviewee Welles to say "I don't know what you're talking about".
But the filmstock itself tends to look second-rate. If this version looks better than the Criterion it can't be by much. And the looped in dialogue too often sounds at odds with the surroundings. Even the music score is vaguely annoying. That said, I still give the picture three out of four stars. Even though the scattershot story-telling style often has the effect of stones being skipped across the water, it still hangs together as a fairly absorbing tale.
One negative is that the French subtitles are non-optional. And can be kind of distracting. I found my eyes frequently straying down to them, then realizing "Wait a minute. they're talking in English, why am I looking at these subtitles?"
There are three extras on the Blu-ray, possibly all on the Criterion DVD as well.
One is a dissertation by some Frenchman. But this has no subtitles. So I skipped it. Then an interview with Simon Cowell and a series of out-takes.
Cowell does an extensive audio interview (1990) with Robert Arden, who's far more engaging here than onscreen. In the out-takes I was impressed by the fact that - although Orson himself muffs his dialogue from time to time, Arden never does. His delivery is, of course, resolutely unlovely. But he's always word perfect no matter how many times he has to repeat it.
As for the film's other performances - well, Orson's make-up (especially the eyebrows) is distractingly bad, though it varies from scene to scene. The performance itself is what I'd call authoritative autopilot. Which within the circumstances of this particular fancy pedigree potboiler works fine.
I still consider this the only Michael Redgrave performance I've ever enjoyed. Creatively eccentric and amusing. But I definitely disagree with Cowell who goes on and on about not just how great Redgrave was in every one of his film roles. but also how handsome he was. Unlike - as Cowell says - Gielgud, Richardson and Olivier. First of all, I never have and never will consider Michael Redgrave good-looking. But Olivier? What was Cowell thinking? Olivier's one of the handsomest movie stars Britain ever produced.
Paola Mori surprised me a bit. I hate that severe look - especially with short hair. So many European starlets went for it in those days. And it's only exacerbated by the ugly 50's fashions (pedal pusher slacks, etc). But, though her dialogue delivery was unexciting, I found it just as competent as that provided by most of the minor Italian actresses who swarmed the screens in those days. That competence has always made me assume she was dubbed by someone else. But the outtake rehearsal reel reveals it really was her doing the talking. So I'm giving my opinion of her an incremental upgrade.
Patricia Medina's specialty is playing cannily assured beauties. And she's very good at it. But here she's utterly miscast as a foolish, scatterbrained stripper. Too bad Orson didn't give Joi Lansing a crack at the role. I think she'd have been a better fit and it would have added one more project to her short but fondly remembered list of Welles credits. In a part sufficiently large and showy that it wouldn't have wound up as another of the dead-end assignments that littered her filmography.
Katina Paxinou is someone I don't generally warm to. She won a (to my mind) undeserved supporting Oscar in the 40's ("For Whom the Bell Tolls"). I usually find her playing in films to be far too big. The closest she came in the 40's to scaling it down effectively was as Tyrone Power's mother in "Prince of Foxes". But I really enjoyed her in this viewing of "Arkadin". She plays a charismatic underworld crone with vestiges of glamour. A kind of mesmerizing, tale-spinning old gargoyle. And Paxinou's big style suits the occasion to a T. Not that "Arkadin", given its haphazard release schedule ( I don't believe the U.S. saw it till the 60's), was even submitted for Oscar eligibility in 1955, but Katina Paxinou now has a spot on my own '55 supporting list - as runner-up to Lillian Gish (unnominated by the Academy) in "The Night of the Hunter". The lady's genuinely spell-binding for the five or ten minutes she's on. And when her off-screen death (throat cut) was reported later on in the film, I genuinely felt for the character.