By MIKE TEAL
The Criterion Collection has been putting together some fabulous Blu-ray packages of Orson Welles films lately, including their superb Chimes at Midnight and Immortal Story sets last year, as well as the upcoming Othello set next month.
Hopefully, Criterion will eventually get around to upgrading their 2006 release of The Complete Mr. Arkadin to Blu-ray in the near future.
In the meantime, the European version of the film, also known as Confidential Report, was released in two different Blu-ray editions back in 2015, the Welles centennial year. The first was an Italian release by Dolmen Home Video and the second was a French offering from Carlotta.
The discs are available from Blu-ray.com at http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Mr-Arkadin-Blu-ray/88330/(Italy) and http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Mr-Arkadin-Blu-ray/130478/ (France)
The Italian import is available from Amazon.
Although the Carlotta release is said by some to be the better of the two, the Italian edition is is said to look fantastic with plenty of film grain. It has been shared on Russian website, for those familiar with torrents and IP-hiding proxies.
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