Legend has it that Orson Welles more or less conned studio boss Harry Cohn over the phone into making The Lady from Shanghai by grabbing the title from a nearby paperback. In any case, this is one of Welles's most fascinating works, a bizarre tale of an Irish sailor (Welles) who accompanies a beautiful woman (Rita Hayworth) and her handicapped husband (Everett Sloane) on a cruise and becomes involved in a murder plot. But never mind all that (the aforementioned legend also claims that Cohn offered a reward to anyone who could explain the plot to him). The film is really... a dream of Welles's driving preoccupations both on and off-screen at the time: the elusiveness of identity, the mystique of things lost, and most of all the director's faltering marriage to Hayworth. In the tradition of male filmmakers who indirectly tell the story of their love affairs with leading ladies, Welles tells his own, photographing Hayworth as a deconstructed star, an obvious cinematic creation, thus reflecting, perhaps, a never-satisfied yearning that leads us back to the mystery of Citizen Kane. --Tom Keogh [show more]
Orson Welles' The Lady From Shanghai is a rough, freewheeling noir enhanced by Welles' usual visual brilliance. It follows Michael O'Hara, an Irish seaman, petty criminal, and aspiring novelist, played by Welles himself with a thick brogue and his characteristic intensity. O'Hara meets the beautiful young Elsa (Rita Hayworth) in a park, and soon finds himself working on her lawyer husband's yacht while romancing her and getting dragged reluctantly into a shadowy murder/insurance plot. The film is loaded with twists and double crosses, but ultimately Welles seems unconcerned about the mechanics of the plot, and the rapid pace gives the film a drive and intensity that makes narrative explication redundant. The film crackles with raw energy and really lights up for the shadowy scenes where Welles takes advantage of the noir style to the greatest effect. The scene where O'Hara describes a shark feeding frenzy to his employer and his cronies, with all the metaphorical implications bubbling underneath, is a perfect example of what's best in Welles' noirs.
If Welles seems in a rush to get through the obligatory plot points, it becomes apparent why when the ending comes. The funhouse showdown which ends the film is certainly among the most mind-boggling avant-garde sequences ever shown in a Hollywood cinema. Throughout this scene, the screen is broken down and chopped by myriad mirrors which multiply each character in numerous fragmented images. Welles is really playing here, letting close-ups overlap with multiple long shots and breaking the screen down into long vertical segments in which the characters try to face each other. For a film in which twists and betrayals are the norm, it's the perfect ending, a showdown in which nobody is even sure where their enemy is. It's a wonderfully disorienting scene, visually stunning, at times even almost abstract in its effects. It's a remarkable conclusion to a fun and always intriguing noir.
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Please note this is a region 2 DVD and will require a region 2 or region free DVD player in order to play Fascinated by gorgeous Mrs Bannister seaman Michael O&39;Hara joins a bizarre yachting cruise and ends up mired in a complex murder plot
Orson Welles directs, produces, writes and stars in this maritime film noir. When unemployed Irishman Michael O'Hara (Welles) saves Elsa Bannister (Rita Hayworth) from a group of thugs, she repays him by getting him a position on her husband Arthur (Everett Sloane)'s yacht, as a deckhand. It soon becomes clear that Elsa has eyes for O'Hara and wants her husband out of the way. O'Hara, although resisting Elsa's advances, finds himself becoming embroiled in a web of intrigue and murder. Everett Sloane and Glenn Anders also star.
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