Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Film noir classic with still-contenporary shadings, 14 Jan 2001
By A Customer
Welles takes the lead and also directs with his soon-to-be-ex-wife, Rita Hayworth taking the role of the femme fatale. At the time, Welles was accused of creating a deliberately confusing and disjointed film to spite her, forcing her to cut and bleach her famous flowing red locks for the part. Welles plays a seaman (Mike O'Hara) who rescues Hayworth from muggers in a park at the beginning of the film. Hayworth is married to a famous trial laywer (Bannister) who is also crippled and twisted, both physically and mentally. Bannister persuades Welles to serve on his private yacht taking him, his wife and his partner on a cruise along the Mexican coast. During the voyage - shot with wonderfully atmospheric lighting - O'Hara is asked by Bannister's partner to help him fake his own death, for a "small fee". Now obsessed with Hayworth, and feeling that he must rescue her from this environment, Welles agrees. The stage is now set for a twist, with the partner's mysterious death, leaving O'Hara looking the clear murderer. Bannister - who is now sure of O'Hara's involvement with his wife - agrees to defend him, determined to loose this case. Just before the jury gives its decision, O'Hara manages to escape from the courtroom, setting things up for the finale, which takes place in the hall of mirrors of a deserted fun park. Apart from the awfulness of Welles' cod-Irish accent, and his inability to show much credibility in the fight scenes, the film's wonderful lighting and cryptic dialogue - delivered straight by the actors - bowls along well, with some wonderful set pieces such as Welles and Hayworth in the aquarium, Bannister cross-examining himself in the court scenes and the finale in the hall of mirrors.
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7 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
flawed but should be seen, 6 Dec 2005
Coming straight from a viewing of The Third Man, one of my all time favourites, and a great performance from Welles, The Lady From Shanghai was a bit of a dissappointment. Welles's acting is the foremost problem. It's as if he was unsure of what to make of the character, where to place him so to speak. Welles who would usually steal the whole scene with the tiniest gesture, here struggles to get involved in his character and give it any sort of real life and consistence.
The other problem is the flow of the movie. Apparently an hour was cut, much to Welles's dismay, and it certainly left the movie very disjointed at places.
Why should you give it a view, then? Well, for one thing the three other principal characters all have something to offer. Rita Hayworth is quite extraordinary, just as mysterious as those famous Hitchcock-blondes (she had to cut and bleach her famous red hair for this one). And her final scene with the scream, "I don't want to die" - that's chilling!
Everett Sloane and Glenn Anders are great too in their parts, both of them playing really bizarre, half comic, half nasty characters.
And then of course there is the famous scene, the showdown, in the fun park and the hall of mirrors, severely cut according to Peter Bogdanovich, but still marvelous stuff.
The Lady From Shanghai is far from being a masterpiece like Citizen Kane but still there is much to be enjoyed.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI, 9 May 2009
GREAT MOVIE TO WATCH AGAIN AND AGAIN. ONE OF RITA's and ORSON' s best
movie. A PURE GEM.
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