The Lady from Shanghai [Blu-ray/DVD] [2 Discs]

Director: Orson Welles

Overview

After watching a rough cut of Orson Welles' The Lady From Shanghai, Columbia Pictures head Harry Cohn looked furtively around the projection room, and in an anguished voice begged "Somebody please tell me what this is about!" Cohn missed the point: in an Orson Welles film, it doesn't matter what it's about. You just sit back and wallow in his camera pyrotechnics and shadow-drenched imagery. Actually, the story, based on a novel by Sherwood King, makes perfect sense after two or three viewings. Welles plays an Irish-American sailor (with a brogue that wouldn't convince a cow) who rescues a beautiful blonde from muggers in Central Park. The blonde is portrayed by the otherwise redheaded Rita Hayworth, who under the direction of her ex-husband Welles delivers one of her most impressive performances. Orson and Rita meet again when Welles is hired as a crew member of the yacht owned by Rita's husband, the brilliant, crippled defense attorney Everett Sloane. As he falls deeper under Rita's spell, Welles gets involved in a bizarre insurance scam. Glenn Anders, Sloane's eccentric law partner, plans to stage his own death, collect the insurance, and skip town. All Welles has to do is pretend to murder Anders, and he'll get a big chunk of the money. As it turns out, Anders is murdered for real. The innocent Welles is defended in court by Sloane, who is famous for never losing a case, but who in this instance seems bound and determined to lose. As the jury files out, Welles makes a break for it. Rita catches up with him at a Chinese theatre, then stands by with a glazed expression on her face as she watches her cohorts drug Welles. As he comes to in an amusement park fun house, he begins to piece the plot together; he has been set up as a clay pigeon by Rita and Sloane. Only now, Rita intends to double-cross her husband. The plot comes to a literally smashing climax in the famous "hall of mirrors" sequence, with Rita and Sloane shooting it out amidst shards of shattering glass. No, it isn't the simplest thing in the world to follow Lady From Shanghai, but we wouldn't forego this bizarre cinematic jigsaw puzzle for anything.

Product Details

Release Date:	01/27/2014
UPC:	0799861181101
Original Release:	0000
Language:	English
Sales rank:	29,508

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Orson Welles	Michael O'Hara
Rita Hayworth	Elsa Bannister
Everett Sloane	Arthur Bannister
Glenn Anders	George Grisby
Ted de Corsia	Sidney Bloome
Erskine Sanford	Judge
Gus Schilling	Goldie
Lou Merrill	Jake,Actor
Evelyn Ellis	Bessie
Carl Frank	District Attorney
Harry Shannon	Cab Driver
Wong Chong	Li
Sam Nelson	Yacht Captain
Tiny Jones	Woman
Edythe Elliott	Old Lady,Guard,Clerk
Peter Cusanelli	Bartender
Joseph Granby	Police Lieutenant
Gerald Pierce	Waiter
Maynard Holmes	Truck Driver
Jack Baxley	Guard
Dorothy Vaughan	Old Woman
Philip Morris	Port Steward/Policeman/Peters
Philip Van Zandt	Toughie/Cop
William Alland	Reporter
Alvin Hammer	Reporter
Mary Newton	Reporter
Robert Gray	Reporter
Byron Kane	Reporter
Edward Peil Sr.	Guard
Charles Meakin	Jury Foreman
Jessie Arnold	Schoolteacher
Doris Chan	Chinese Girl
Billy Louie	Chinese Girl
Joe Recht	Garage Attendant
Jean Wong	Ticket Seller,Ticket Taker
Grace Lem	Chinese Woman
Preston Lee	Chinese Man
Joe Palma	Cab Driver
Richard Wilson	District Attorney's Assistant
Al Eben	Policeman
Norman Thomson	Policeman
Harry Strang	Policeman
Steve Benton	Policeman
Milton Kibbee	Actor,Policeman
Eddie Coke	Policeman
Mabel Smaney	People
George 'Shorty' Chirello	Actor
Vernon Cansino	People
Wong Show Chong	Li
Heinz Roemheld	Composer

Technical Credits

Orson Welles

Orson Welles	Screenwriter,Producer
Lawrence Butler	Special Effects
Harry Cohn	Producer
Lodge Cunningham	Sound/Sound Designer

Editorial Reviews

Disorienting and dislocating, 1948's kaleidoscopic noir masterpiece The Lady from Shanghai marked another artistic triumph and commercial failure for master filmmaker Orson Welles. It also chronicled the disintegration of his short-lived marriage to screen siren Rita Hayworth -- playing at times like an abstract commentary on their turbulent private life. Against his better judgment, the surprisingly sophisticated sailor Michael O'Hara (Orson Welles) takes a job on the luxury yacht of alluring Elsa Bannister (Rita Hayworth), landing himself in the middle of murder. The Lady from Shanghai has an all-but-nonsensical plot and a distant, nightmarish quality, generated partly by the tension between the meticulously photographed images shot on location and a soundtrack Welles obviously reconstructed in the studio. Ultimately, it's difficult to know whether to believe anything that happens: Perhaps it was all just a nightmare; some perverse fantasy of masculine paranoia climaxing in the oft-imitated hall of mirrors sequence. However one reads the film, it stands today as one of a privileged handful of Welles' finest efforts.