Herr Satan persönlich! (1955)

Herr Satan persönlich!: Directed by Orson Welles. With Orson Welles, Michael Redgrave, Patricia Medina, Akim Tamiroff. An elusive billionaire hires an American smuggler to investigate his past, leading to a dizzying descent into a cold-war European landscape.

“Did I ever mention that I watched Mr. Arkadin every day for three months once? And that I recently bought a version of it different from the one I bought years ago (supposedly the UK print), and enjoyed it like I was seeing it for the first time?u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eWelles is a childhood hero. Thereu0026#39;s nothing rational about my feelings about Welles. If there are Welles fan boys, I admit to being one. But I have entertained the notion that I like Mr. Arkadin (also called Confidential Report, sometimes) as much as I do because it so completely betrays Welles as a titanic artist having to deal with the small frustrations and vicissitudes of Everyman. The bones of the thing, the behind the scene life of the film, the fact that the whole thing at one point passed through the manu0026#39;s hands shows through more than on any film he ever made. You actually see the customs stamps at the end of reels! His stratagems are more obvious, his resources more threadbare here than even Othello, his most legendary prolonged/disjointed/truncated shoot. Parts of it look shot on Super8; as good as some of it looks, at other times, the lighting doesnu0026#39;t feel professional (I am thinking of the nightclub and penitent procession scenes). In the end, I think Arkadin is the one completed and released Welles film that humanizes the man, without exactly bringing him low.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eClinching my interest in the film is Wellesu0026#39; comment, reiterated for different interviewers through the years, that Arkadin contained the best story he ever thought up to film. (He made a radio script of it first, and when he refined it for film, he saw fit to keep perhaps 95% intact from the radio play.) I may not agree with Wellesu0026#39; own appraisal of Arkadin as a story, but again, his comments betray perhaps more than intended: Wellesu0026#39; deep, and possibly irrational, feeling of attachment to this film. He said he considered it the most u0026#39;destroyedu0026#39; film (destroyed by outside interference) he ever made. –Worse even than The Ambersons! I really think he never had u0026quot;closureu0026quot; with the experience of making Arkadin, and it continued to haunt him the rest of his days.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eI invite you to take a look at it (it is available in many cheap public domain DVD versions) and see if you, too, fall under its spell. If it leaves you totally cold, or you canu0026#39;t take it seriously, I understand. But remember, better and worse DVD versions exist. Supposedly, the Criterion Collection will release it sometime in the next couple of years. That may be the version to make your definitive move with.”