Mr. Arkadin

Summary: The enigmatic Gregory Arkadin (Orson Welles) is more complex than Charles Foster Kane, but equally as wealthy, though the source of his fortune is highly questionable. The Wellesian plot device is Guy Van Stratten, a penny ante cigarette smuggler who starts up a romance with Arkadin’s daughter, Raina, in order to meet Arkadin. When Arkadin confronts Van Stratten with a dossier he has compiled on him to stop him from seeing his daughter, Van Stratten has achieved his goal. But Arkadin outsmarts him by getting Van Stratten to compile a confidential report on himself under the pretense that Arkadin is a little foggy on how he got to be who he is and figures he has made some enemies along the way. When the characters Van Stratten interviews all end up dead, Van Stratten fears that he, too, knows too much for his own good. He saves his own neck by getting back together with Raina, the one person Arkadin doesn’t dare touch.