The Lady From Shanghai (1947) This riotous collision between the tempestuously brilliant Orson Welles and Columbia Picture's mogul-monster Harry Cohn was bound to happen.......since, at the time of its production, Welles was married to Columbia's reigning sex goddess (and major meal ticket), Rita Hayworth.......
Needing cash in a hurry to rescue one of his stage productions, Welles tapped the ever irascible Cohn for the cash by promising to turn a second rate, obscure mystery novel into a big box-office vehicle for Hayworth......
And the result? A visually dazzling film noir with the expected eye-popping Welles cinematics.........and an utterly incomprehensible plot as dense and demented as the 1946 "The Big Sleep" (which even its own author Raymond Chandler could never figure out).
Not that anyone would pay attention to the story mechanics here, since the the principle attractions were Rita Hayworth and Welles singularly unique gifts for propulsive camerawork and editing.
Sporting a lilting Irish brogue, Welles plays an itinerant sailor-vagabond who falls hard for femme fatale Hayworth, the wealthy wife of a crippled, lethally sardonic defense attorney (Everett Sloane).
Infatuated beyond his control Welles accepts a crew position on Hayworth and Sloane's luxurious yacht, where he's suckered into an impossibly nutty fake murder scam by Sloane's sneering law firm partner (Glenn Anders, overacting to the max with a perpetual mad gleam in his eyes)
Anyone with even a glancing familiarity with noir knows this isn't going to end well for anybody, especially Welles. Real dead bodies, including the slimy law partner, soon ensue and Welles finds himself on trial for murder......and defended by, of all people, Sloane.
The hysterical, overwrought murder trial borders on parody, equaling, if not surpassing, the ridiculous melodramatics of Jeanne Crain's trial in 1945's "Leave Her To Heaven". And we certainly wouldn't spoil the fun of explaining how Welles manages to engineer a daring escape from the courtroom, only to reach a gaudy showdown with Hayworth and Sloane, both armed.......in a funhouse hall of mirrors.
That final spectacular funhouse Hall Of Mirrors sequence, a true noir-ish stroke of genius, forever gave "The Lady From Shanghai" its moment of cinema immortality. (and maybe the only thing that even hardcore movie buffs still remember about it.....)
But apart from the loony storyline, we savored all the vivid, striking images that set Welles apart from other directors. When Sloane, stages an all day and night picnic and feast along the Acapulco coastline, Welles makes it a gorgeous sight to behold.
Implausible and outlandish from beginning to end, leave it to Orson Welles to craft it into a movie that no cinema buff should ever dare miss.....and one hell of a lot of fun to watch. 3 & 1/2 stars (***1/2)
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