The Lady From Shanghai

Orson Welles was always bedeviled by studios who messed with his vision. That could be the case with 1947's The Lady From Shanghai, which is a very uneven film, but contains moments of greatness.

The story goes that Welles needed money for a stage version of Around The World In 80 Days and promised Columbia pictures president Harry Cohn that in exchange for the money he would direct a picture gratis. As the subject matter he suggested a book, If I Die Before I Wake, that Welles had never read and noticed in front of him during the call. That may be apocryphal, but it sounds like Welles.

The story is pure film noir, with a sap and a femme fatale. The sap is played by Welles himself, Mike O'Hara, a seaman who is in New York when he spots a beautiful woman, Rita Hayworth, riding in a carriage through Central Park. She is accosted by thugs, and Welles rescues her. She later insists that he sign on as a crewman on their yacht, along with her husband, a brilliant crime attorney (Everett Sloan).

Welles and Hayworth grow attracted to each other, with Sloan seemingly oblivious. Sloan's partner (Glenn Anders), later makes Welles a proposition--he wants to disappear, and wants Welles to make it look like he murdered him. Anyone who has seen a film noir knows this a bad idea, but Welles is driven by his love for Hayworth.

The Lady From Shanghai opened to so-so reviews, but has grown in stature through the years. It ticks all the boxes of noir, as Hayworth isn't all that she seems, and there's a doozy of a twist at the end. It also has some remarkable set pieces, none so much as the climactic shootout in a hall of mirrors. This scene, which is only about two minutes, was originally twenty, but Cohn had the movie re-edited. Even at two minutes, it's amazingly done, and has been copied and parodied ever since (most notably by Woody Allen in Manhattan Murder Mystery). Other changed were made without Welles' consent, which is perhaps why the film seems choppy in some places.

Welles, today thought of primarily as a great director, was also a great actor. He effortlessly adopts an Irish brogue, and while he is a manly sort, has a critical weakness. Hayworth, who was a great beauty, isn't called upon to do a lot acting here--just basically to look good, especially in bathing suit. Hayworth and Welles were married up to when the film was made. Sloan, who was Mr. Bernstein in Citizen Kane, is memorable, especially with his pair of canes. When he enters the hall of mirrors, identified by his canes, you can't help gut gasp a little.

Welles, of course, wrote the script, and it's full of great lines. "Some people can smell danger, but not me," and a monologue about when O'Hara saw a shark feeding frenzy, which becomes a metaphor for the action. And it has a fantastic ending, with O'Hara walking alone across the empty San Francisco streets:  "Well, everybody is somebody's fool. The only way to stay out of trouble is to grow old, so I guess I'll concentrate on that. Maybe I'll live so long that I'll forget her. Maybe I'll die trying."