MR ARKADIN (aka CONFIDENTIAL REPORT) - New DVD (PAL) old VHS (NTSC)

[Fredric]

It seems that none of the versions on the Arkadin Video Availability page is the Corinth version. Is it out of print? I assume it was released at one time, since Wilson and Marzol seem to have them on tape. Is it any wonder that the Welles preferred version is the least available? Or is it?

[Fredric]

1 - the voyager disc: papier mache bats hanging over super imposed credits, told in flashbacks, 2 stories at party, arden doesn't have sex with raina.

2 - no bats, one story at party, told in flashbacks, arden doesn't have sex with raina.

If Confidential Report and the Corinth Arkadin are the same length, how can one have two stories at the party and the other only have one? What makes up that time on the Corinth version?

[Jeff Wilson]

I will get exact timings and details tonight or tomorrow; what's more fun is that there are even differences in the dubbing; in one version, Bracco is dubbed by Welles, in another he isn't.

Is the Corinth out of print? Don't know. I got mine from Jaime. There might be copies floating around.



Edited By Jeff Wilson on Feb. 14 2002 at 15:41

[nathan_h]

I recently purchased the new PAL region 0 DVD of MR Arkadin in its Eurpean incarnation as Confidential Report, and am glad to report that a good, if a tad scratchy, print has been transferred as well as could be expected without any real digital "restoration" being done to it.

How does the image quality compare to the Criterion (Voyager) laserdisc of Confidential Report?

[jaime marzol]

i don't know how long the different versions are, but running times assigned to films have never been very reliable. you really need to sit through it with a watch. the preferable version, the version with 2 stories, and the bats, i imagine should be the most available version. but you can get it at half.com

[jaime marzol]

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oh, don't get me wrong, though i think arden sucks, i could not imagine any one else in that part. he is one of the things that add to that surreal atmosphere the film has. he is one of those characters i like not liking. that cliche-gumshoe maner of his is great. when he lecherously says to reina, about not knowing him, "don't worry, HONEY, you will." it's so laughable.

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[nathan_h]

i don't know how long the different versions are, but running times assigned to films have never been very reliable. you really need to sit through it with a watch. the preferable version, the version with 2 stories, and the bats, i imagine should be the most available version. but you can get it at half.com

The one on DVD at places like half.com is pretty poor & washed out, right? As I recall, the LD looked much better...

[Jeff Wilson]

I have the Home Vision VHS, and it looks fine, so I imagine the LD looks a bit better than that, since they presumably were using the same source. I don't think the film has ever looked really great, though. The DVD available on Ebay and elsewhere is a pretty crappy version, according to others here who have it. It does have Tony Curtis though, doing an introduction to the film. That alone might be worth the $5 the disc runs.

[Fredric]

Tony Curtis is definitely worth it. As for the print, within the first five minutes a logo, "Delta" I think it says, pops up in the bottom right corner of the screen. Did they tape this from a local tv station and transfer it to DVD?!?!?! Looking forard to the Italian restoration, whatever the details of that are.

[Jeff Wilson]

What happened there is probably what some bootleggers do, namely, they put a logo of some kind in the corner so that no one else can steal their product without them knowing about it. Since it's a public domain title, anyone could take that DVD and make their own video or DVDs from it, and this is meant to prevent that.

[jaime marzol]

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what i meant at www.half.com, that there people sell the stuff they don't want any more. if voyager ever put out arkadin on vhs you might find it there. i have found all types of out of print books i'd been searching for, for pennies.

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[sergio]

Hello everyone,

What a pleasure to see so much traffic on this topic!

The new DVD entitled CONFIDENTIAL REPORT was released by Metrodome on January 28 and is definitely PAL but is listed as being Region 0 on the back of the disc packaging - the Catalogue Number is MTD5069.

It's the same print as shown by the BBC in the past.

If Jeff or Jaime can get an exact timing and description of the differences between versions I would be forever grateful - and if anyone known how to get the Corinth version on tape, I would be frankly overjoyed.

Incidentally, I'm with Rosenbaum in saying that Ardren doesn't suck that much - it's that the role is so incredibly unsympathetic - sure, a better actor would have been great and would have provided a stronger foil to Welles' massive Arkadin (say Kirk Douglas, always happy to play unsympathetic parts), but the seediness of it all is surely the point.

Best wishes

Sergio

[Jeff Wilson]

Sergio, how long does the version on the UK DVD run, exactly? The Confidential Report tape released in the US by Homevision and Criterion was stated to run 99 minutes. I'll check my tape this weekend and see what the VCR counter says. The version you have should have the 4% PAL speedup, so the time should be that much shorter.

[Fredric]

Reading about Arkadin#3, the Corinth version, in Rosenbaum's article. It seems that the main difference between this Arkadin and Confidential report is that the Corinth version keeps returning to Van Stratten and Zouk in the Munich attic for a bit of dialogue and then flashes back again. Confidential Report only has the first scene in the attic and the bulk of the story is one continuous flashback with voicover narration, ending when they come up-to-date. The visual returns to the attic flat could account for the missing time due to lack of second story at the party.

Hmmm. Restore the print, combine Conf Rep and the Corinth Arkadin, or put the second story as a deleted scene, and we might have a decent DVD. Oh, wait, add a new Tony Curtis intro

[sergio]

Hello Jeff,

The running time on the PAL DVD is 93 and a half minutes which means that in a cinema it would run a little over 97 minutes, so it's at least a couple of minutes shorter that this 99 minute version that so often gets referred to, though this is often, it seems to me, applied to the English language European cut and not always to the Corinth version, which seems to be the one to compare all others against.

With regards to a special edition, the most annoying thing about the new PAL DVD at least is that if it were cleaned up digitally (as say with the Warner edition of CITIZEN KANE) the source material is good enough to provide a truly excellent transfer. Of course, "restorations" can be a mixed blessing, as with the OTHELLO job which I now find less and less satisfying.

Does anyone know where the details of this Italian restoration of ARKADIN which is referred to above actually come from? Being from Italy myself (but based in the UK) I am very curious as it's not something I've come across