The Lady from Shanghai (1947)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Lady from Shanghai (1947) – O. Welles

Classic film noir from Orson Welles, famous for its nearly incomprehensible plot, but rife with stunning set-pieces (the aquarium, the funhouse, the hall of mirrors, Acapulco, San Francisco’s Chinatown) and odd characters (Everett Sloane as Arthur Bannister, Glenn Anders as George Grisby).  Welles stars as Michael “Black Irish” O’Hara, sporting a not quite passable brogue, who falls for Rita Hayworth (as Mrs. Arthur Bannister), his soon-to-be ex-wife in real life, and ends up on trial for murder (in the film), defended by Bannister himself, a famous trial lawyer (and trickster).  O’Hara’s narration seems trustworthy but no one he meets on the yacht trip from NYC through the Panama Canal and on up to San Francisco possibly could be.  He tells us himself that he was a fool for chasing Mrs. Bannister who may or may not really love him but when Grisby hires him to kill Grisby, he really should have walked away.  Nearly every scene contains a flourish of some sort or another, lending a degree of ostentatiousness that feels different from the more integrated stylishness of Citizen Kane; here, the backgrounds are busy and details might be thrown in on a lark (because Welles likes Chinese opera perhaps) and the whole thing starts to feel crazy and cock-eyed and not nearly as serious as noir would later get. But Hayworth in her blonde makeover is unfathomable as the archetypal femme fatale, getting done over by her own husband, on screen and off.  Not to be missed.