Mr Arkadin stands as one of Welles' most convoluted productions, and in the career of Orson Welles, that's saying something. Allegedly cut to ribbons worse than anything else in his career according to Welles, Arkadin survives in multiple versions: two American cuts and two European cuts, one of those being a Spanish language version. See Jonathan Rosenbaum's article "The Seven Arkadins" for more details on this. Consequently, there is nothing really approximating a director's cut. Further, there is the novel written by Maurice Bessy (or someone else) under Welles' name, and the Harry Lime radio show episode ("Man of Mystery") that appears to be the original spark for the story.

An odd film, clearly suffering from the cuts imposed upon it by people other than Welles. For myself, it's among the weakest of his films, along with The Stranger, although Arkadin has far more interesting things in it than The Stranger. Arkadin has some great set pieces, but they don't seem to add up to a coherent whole.