Orson Welles called this film his biggest disaster, yet it spawned nine distinct versions.

Entertainment · Published 3 October 2026 · Updated 25 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Mr. Arkadin is a cinematic puzzle. After losing creative control during production, Orson Welles saw his thriller chopped into multiple, conflicting edits by producers. From a linear U.S. release to a 2006 "comprehensive" restoration, the film exists as a ghost of the director's original vision, haunted by missing footage and unauthorized novels.

Released in 1955, Mr. Arkadin follows an American smuggler hired by a wealthy oligarch to investigate his own mysterious past. The plot, which draws from Welles's radio work, centers on the titular character's attempt to erase his criminal history. However, the production was plagued by chaos. When Welles missed an editing deadline, producer Louis Dolivet seized the project, releasing several versions that Welles never approved. This loss of creative control led Welles to label the film the "biggest disaster" of his life in a 1982 BBC interview.

The film's fragmented history is best captured by critic Jonathan Rosenbaum, who identified seven versions of the story in his 1991 essay, "The Seven Arkadins." Since then, two more have emerged, including a 2006 restoration. These versions vary wildly in structure, length, and content. For instance, the common U.S. release removed the film's complex flashback structure entirely, resulting in a linear narrative that Rosenbaum criticized as clumsily truncated. Other versions, such as the Spanish-language cut, featured different actors for key roles, while the "Corinth" version was long considered the closest to Welles's intent until the 2006 Criterion edit.

The mystery extends to a novel credited to Welles, which he claimed never to have read or written. Research by scholar François Thomas eventually confirmed that French screenwriter Maurice Bessy was the true author. Today, the film remains an approximation of Welles's vision. The 2006 Criterion release attempted to synthesize all available English-language footage, yet even this version lacks specific shots Welles described, such as a crucial close-up of a character's body on a beach. Because it was a European co-production, the film’s copyright is complex, lasting until 2068, seventy years after the 1998 death of composer Paul Misraki.

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