Lord Satan personally
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Lord Satan personally |
| Original title | Mr. Arkadin |
| Country of production |
France , Spain , Switzerland |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1955 |
| length | Different lengths: 93/106 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Orson Welles |
| script | Orson Welles |
| production | Orson Welles, Louis Dolivet |
| music | Paul Misraki |
| camera | Jean Bourgoin |
| cut | Renzo Lucidi |
| occupation | |
| |
Mr. Satan himself is a film by the American director Orson Welles , which he made in various European countries with himself and Robert Arden in the leading roles.
action
Guy Van Stratten is an American who makes a living in Europe with small jobs as a cigarette smuggler. He and his girlfriend Mily witness the murder of a stranger named Bracco, who shortly before his death reveals two names that, according to Bracco, are the key to a fortune: Gregory Arkadin and Sophie. Van Stratten, interested in the alleged fortune, soon learns that Gregory Arkadin is a well-known multimillionaire and businessman who operates in the highest circles. Van Stratten uses a few tricks to meet the mysterious Mr. Arkadin. He claims that he has no memory of his biography before 1927. He hires Van Stratten as a detective to investigate his past. Van Stratten travels the world and tries to determine Arkadin's past with the help of contemporary witnesses.
The few contemporary witnesses still alive tell that Arkadin made his fortune as a gangster in Europe after the First World War. Sophie, who was also mentioned by Bracco, was Arkadin's lover at the time and now lives in Mexico as the wife of a general. However, when Van Stratten visits them, the contemporary witnesses are all murdered one after the other. Van Stratten's friend Mily is also liquidated. Eventually he finds out that Arkadin and his henchmen are responsible for the murders. He, Van Stratten, is said to be the alleged perpetrator of the murders. With the murders, Arkadin wants to eliminate thoughts of his dark past and thus hide them from his beloved daughter Raina. For this purpose, Raina was always shielded from the public. There is a final argument between Guy Van Stratten and Gregory Arkadin. In the end, Arkadin thinks that his daughter Raina discovered his past, whereupon he commits suicide.
background
Inspired by his character of the charismatic criminal Harry Lime in the film The Third Man (1949) Welles got the idea for the character of the criminal Mr. Arkadin. Another suggestion for Welles was the arms dealer Basil Zaharoff , who was also of mysterious origin and, like Arkadin, owned a castle in Spain.
After the film was shot, Orson Welles took too long to finish the cut and didn't make it in the allotted time. Then the nervous producer Dolivet took the completion of the film into his hands. That caused confusion: a total of nine cut versions of the film have been circulating to date, varying in length from 93 to 106 minutes. None of these frames were made or accepted by Welles. Welles once described the loss of creative control over Mr. Arkadin as the greatest disaster of his life.
In his private life, the film also marked a turning point for Welles: He was third married to Paola Mori, who plays his daughter in the film. Both remained married until Welles' death in 1985, although they had been separated from the 1960s. Another curious cast in the film was the actor Robert Arden (1922-2004), who was largely unknown until then and who played the lead role alongside Welles. Arden was surprised and initially thought his cast was a joke. The critics were not convinced of Arden's acting performance at the premiere and it was his only role that mattered.
Reviews
When the film was released, it split critics and failed at the box office. Der Spiegel was disappointed in its 1956 review: “Orson Welles, America's gently aging baby genius, plays a demonic billionaire and bearded father in a murder story he himself devised and staged. The violent Welles style between horror trade and artistic ambition, which halfway proved itself on Shakespeare material, squeezes the thin, artificial fable flat. The film failed as a teardrop as it did as an experiment in form. "
The television magazine Prisma , on the other hand, was in a positive mood: “Similar to In the Sign of Evil, director Orson Welles refined a basically secondary trivial story with his excellent staging.” The lexicon of the international film was largely enthusiastic: “A fantastic crime story ; The colportage of the thicket of action is condensed to the highest intensity by a brilliant staging, with the individual episodes conveying an excursion into the psychopathic. The brilliant effects of this gruesome drama cannot, of course, completely hide the fact that the subject lacks deeper meaning. ”The Protestant film observer came to a similar assessment:“ A film experiment by and with Orson Welles full of optical ideas that were unusual for the time it was made and with filmed with the usual skill, but only suitable for critical adults because of the 'genius' non-commitment. "
Web links
- Confidential Report in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Criticism from the mirror
- ↑ Critique of Prisma
- ↑ Two thousand and one
- ↑ Evangelischer Presseverband München, Review No. 349/1956