A Few Words on the Arkadin Set

I received my review copy of the Criterion Complete Mr. Arkadin set last week, and after a cursory walkthrough, I can say it’s pretty much everything we hoped it would be. While it isn’t absolutely “Complete” (something that has to be a bit of a gag on their part, given the project at hand here), it’s about as complete as most of us would want it to be. Including three different versions of the film and a copious selection of extras, this really stacks up as the single best Welles DVD release out there, moving past the French Macbeth set for the top spot. The only black mark I can assign it so far is Criterion’s misguided used of window-boxing on the image, done to alleviate overscan for the masses. It cuts down resolution, and it’s just a bad idea. Anyway, with the possibility of a North American Macbeth release this year, in addition to Jane Eyre, this is shaping up as a good year for Welles on DVD. My full length review will be appearing on digitally Obsessed, so I don’t want to get into too much detail here, but if you were at all on the fence about this release, don’t be. It’s a must have. If you'd like to order a copy and support this site (c'mon man, you know you wanna), just make with the clicking on the link below...

Buy The Complete Mr. Arkadin at Amazon.com