Ground-breaking, very clever

Rating: 8/10 (31 October 2004)

This must be one of the most influential films of all time..melodrama at its best. The newsreel at the start is especially powerful as are the opera scenes towards the end. It set new standards in movie-making....but at one level it is curiously uninvolving. It lacks a truly sympathetic character.
Orson Welles is magnificent in the title role, but many of the other leads are rather colourless. Joseph Cotton would be MUCH better in The Third Man.
The air of gloom in the latter part of the film is particularly powerful, but the final ending is rather weak and contrived. Overall, still a great movie, but the lack of s sympathetic character is a weakness for me.