The Lady from Shanghai

The Lady from Shanghai

1947. USA. Directed by Orson Welles. Screenplay by Welles, based on the novel If I Die Before Waking, by Sherwood King. With Welles, Rita Hayworth, Everett Sloane, Ted de Corsia. Like so many Orson Welles films, The Lady from Shanghai is a shadow of its former self, as Columbia Pictures mogul Harry Cohn trimmed Welles’s 155-minute cut by nearly an hour and refused to follow his scoring notes. Nonetheless, this is noir at its best, with Rita Hayworth as the seductive Scheherazade who entangles naïve Irish sailor Welles in romantic intrigue, an insurance scam, and murder. Baroque set pieces on a yacht (on loan from Errol Flynn for the production), a Chinese opera theater, and, most famously, a funhouse hall of mirrors, give Welles free rein with deep-focus, chiaroscuro photography, optical distortions and trickery, and shock editing. 87 min.