The Lady from Shanghai
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| The Lady from Shanghai | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Directed by | Orson Welles |
| Produced by | Orson Welles |
| Written by | Sherwood King (novel) Orson Welles William Castle (uncredited) Charles Lederer (uncredited) Fletcher Markle (uncredited) |
| Starring | Rita Hayworth Orson Welles Everett Sloane |
| Music by | Heinz Roemheld |
| Cinematography | Charles Lawton Jr. Rudolph Maté (uncredited) Joseph Walker (uncredited) |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
| Release date(s) | December 24, 1947 (France) June 9, 1948 (US) |
| Running time | 87 min. |
| Language | English |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
The Lady from Shanghai is a 1948 black-and-white film noir directed by Orson Welles and starring Welles, his then-estranged wife Rita Hayworth, and Everett Sloane. It is based on the novel If I Die Before I Wake by Sherwood King.
Contents |
[edit] Synopsis
The Lady from Shanghai tells the story of Michael O'Hara (Welles), who foils a robbery attempt against a beautiful blonde, Elsa (Hayworth). Elsa and her husband, the famous crippled criminal attorney Arthur Bannister (Sloane), are newly arrived in New York City from Shanghai. They are on their way to San Francisco via the Panama Canal. Michael, who is attracted to Elsa, agrees to sign on as an able seaman aboard Bannister's yacht. He meets Bannister's law partner, George Grisby, who is traveling with the married couple. Grisby induces Michael to help Grisby fake his own death for the insurance money. Michael plans to run away with Elsa once Grisby pays him a cut of the insurance. But then Grisby and one of Bannister's hired men are found dead, and Michael is accused of the murders. The film features a surreal climactic shootout in a house of mirrors.
[edit] Production
In the summer of 1946, Welles was directing a musical stage version of Around the World in Eighty Days, with a comedic and ironic rewriting of the Jules Verne novel by Welles, incidental music and songs by Cole Porter, and production by Mike Todd, who would later produce the successful film version with David Niven.
When Todd pulled out from the lavish and expensive production, Welles supported the finances himself. When he ran out of money at one point, he urgently needed $55,000 to release some costumes which were being held, he convinced Columbia Pictures president Harry Cohn to send him the money to continue the show, and in exchange Welles promised to write, produce, direct and star in a film for Cohn for no further fee. On the spur of the moment he suggested the film be based on the book a girl in the theatre box office happened to be reading at the time he was calling Cohn, which Welles had never read.[1]
The Lady from Shanghai was filmed in late 1946, finished in early 1947, and released in the U.S. on June 9, 1948. The delay in releasing it was due to heavy editing by Cohn's assistants at Columbia, who insisted on cutting about an hour from Welles's final cut. The film was purported to have links to the Black Dahlia murder at the time as the scenes cut from the film made significant references to the murder, months before it happened [1]. The studio was also located near two areas (one a restaurant) where the victim often frequented before she was murdered.
Welles cast his then wife Rita Hayworth as Rosalie, and caused controversy when he made her cut her famous long red hair and bleach it blonde.
[edit] Filming locations
In addition to the Columbia Pictures studios, the film was partly shot on location in San Francisco. It features the Sausalito waterfront and a waterfront bar and cafe reported to be the Sally Stanford's Valhalla, the front, interior, and a courtroom scene of the old Kearny Street Hall of Justice, and shots of Welles running across Portsmouth Square, escaping to a long scene in a theater in Chinatown, then the Steinhart Aquarium in Golden Gate Park, and Whitney's Playland amusement park at the beach for the famous hall of mirrors scene (shot on a soundstage).
Other scenes were filmed in Acapulco. The yacht Zaca, where many scenes take place, was owned by actor Errol Flynn, who skippered the yacht in between takes, and can also be seen in the background in one scene outside a cantina.[citation needed]
[edit] Critical reaction
When he saw the rushes, Cohn detested the picture; he couldn't figure out what it was about and offered $1000 to anyone who could explain it to him. Even Welles himself could not explain the plot to him.
Reviews of the film were mixed when released in the late 1940s. Variety magazine found the script wordy and noted that the "rambling style used by Orson Welles has occasional flashes of imagination, particularly in the tricky backgrounds he uses to unfold the yarn, but effects, while good on their own, are distracting to the murder plot."[2]
A more recent Time Out Film Guide review states that Welles simply didn't care enough to make the narrative seamless: "the principal pleasure of The Lady from Shanghai is its tongue-in-cheek approach to story-telling."[3]
[edit] Main cast
- Rita Hayworth as Elsa 'Rosalie' Bannister
- Orson Welles as Michael O'Hara
- Everett Sloane as Arthur Bannister
- Glenn Anders as George Grisby
[edit] References
- ^ Interview with Orson Welles, 1982, Arena, BBC Television
- ^ Variety film review
- ^ Time Out Film Guide review
[edit] External links
- The Lady from Shanghai at the Internet Movie Database
- Great Films looks at Lady from Shanghai
- Review by Ed Howard at Only The Cinema
- Review by Jason Mark Scott at Bright Lights Film Journal
|
|||||
