Rating: 
Summary: Orson at his slyest, strangest,and most outrageous...!!
Review: ...And that is saying alot,given his vast canon, and knowing that just about everything he did was pretty...well, you know what I mean! Anyway, this rare Welles entry is a definite must for any film buff, I think more accessible and eccentric than either the more famous "Kane" or "Ambersons". And definitely several cuts above "The Stranger",which was done only two years earlier. Rita Hayworth is the ultimate femme fatale,every bit as cunning as Barbara Stanwyk in 1944's "Double Indemnity". LADY FROM SHANGHAI may be my favorite Noir film, with a bamboozling plot, right up there with Chandler's "The Big Sleep". Neither of these have the exotic beach locals,including a canoe ride through a thicket of crocodiles,and my favorite, a tour through the San Francisco aquarium,where Orson and Rita fit right in with some of the strangest octopuses, and squids you'll ever see,even if they are in black and white. Then there's the final stroll through Chinatown,the Chinese Theatre, and the famous hall of mirrors scene. Does any other Noir film have anything close to this?? None that I know!!! A Must See,and not just for Mr. Welles's legions of fans!
Rating: 
Summary: Fun-filled parody of film noir
Review: An often bewildering parody of film noir in particular and Hollywood conventions in general, Columbia relegated "The Lady from Shanghai" to B-movie status due to objections over Orson Welles' manipulation of soon-to-be-ex-wife Rita Hayworth into a ruthless femme fatale. However, Hayworth's metamorphosis is the most superficial of the caricatures that populate the film, among them Everett Sloane (Bernstein from "Citizen Kane") as a leering, corrupt, crippled lawyer, and show-stealing Glenn Anders as the giddily inscrutable Grisby, whose machinations drive what passes for a plot. Amidst this gallery, Welles' own sublimely ridiculous presence, as a hopelessly idealistic sailor with a phony "Black Irish" accent, becomes the most obvious tip-off that the proceedings are anything but serious fare. Once the comic tone is established, the film lurches forward with manic energy, throwing plausibility to the wind as it careens toward the climax in the expressionistic Crazy House and its Hall of Mirrors. The flattering close-ups of Hayworth (inserted by the studio to "save" the picture) clash marvelously with Welles' vertiginous camera angles, adding to the film's discontinuity and enhancing its satirical nature. My favorite line: "I came to in the crazy house, but for a moment there, I thought it was me who was going crazy!" My advice: forget the plot and enjoy "The Lady from Shanghai" for its many guilty pleasures.
Rating:
Summary: Fun-filled parody of film noir
Review: An often bewildering parody of film noir in particular and Hollywood conventions in general, Columbia relegated "The Lady from Shanghai" to B-movie status due to objections over Orson Welles' manipulation of soon-to-be-ex-wife Rita Hayworth into a ruthless femme fatale. However, Hayworth's metamorphosis is the most superficial of the caricatures that populate the film, among them Everett Sloane (Bernstein from "Citizen Kane") as a leering, corrupt, crippled lawyer, and show-stealing Glenn Anders as the giddily inscrutable Grisby, whose machinations drive what passes for a plot. Amidst this gallery, Welles' own sublimely ridiculous presence, as a hopelessly idealistic sailor with a phony "Black Irish" accent, becomes the most obvious tip-off that the proceedings are anything but serious fare. Once the comic tone is established, the film lurches forward with manic energy, throwing plausibility to the wind as it careens toward the climax in the expressionistic Crazy House and its Hall of Mirrors. The flattering close-ups of Hayworth (inserted by the studio to "save" the picture) clash marvelously with Welles' vertiginous camera angles, adding to the film's discontinuity and enhancing its satirical nature. My favorite line: "I came to in the crazy house, but for a moment there, I thought it was me who was going crazy!" My advice: forget the plot and enjoy "The Lady from Shanghai" for its many guilty pleasures.
Rating:
Summary: I DON'T WANT TO DIE !
Review: Another must-have in your DVD collection, Orson Welles's THE LADY FROM SHANGHAÏ is presented by Columbia Pictures in a superb copy with a commentary of well-known critic and director Peter Bogdanovich. Four trailers, the filmographies (highlights...) of Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth and a featurette presenting an interview with Peter Bogdanovich complete the program of this DVD. THE LADY FROM SHANGHAÏ is not entirely the movie Orson Welles wanted to present to the audience, Columbia's boss Harry Cohn having sent back the movie to the editing room after the first screening. However, the genius of Orson Welles is still there with a certain number of anthology scenes that are part of Movie History now. Personally, I have always felt a little uneasy with the character played by Glenn Anders, the mad lawyer who proposes Orson Welles the strangest deal of all. The scene in Acapulco between an hysterical Anders and a naive Welles is a sheer moment of genius. According to Peter Bogdanovich, Orson Welles, in front of those who wondered why he had to present in his movies so strange and flamboyant takes, was always surprised because for him these "strange" scenes reflected the way he saw things, they were natural to him. We are not used anymore to such personalities able to create a coherent personal artistic world, we have to swallow so many anonymous movies each year that a film like THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI cannot but act as a healthy bomb for our polluted brain cells. A DVD for your library.
Rating: 
Summary: Another butchered masterpiece
Review: As with "The Magnificent Ambersons" some six years previous, director Welles ran into some difficulties with the studio regarding the original cut of the movie, which they said was too long. In those days there were frequently double or triple bills with two or three movies shown, and theater owners were hesitant to show movies that were longer than an hour and a half. The cut Welles submitted to the studio was about 100 minutes long, where the released version runs at 87 minutes. Details are scarce as to the nature of the cut scenes. Perhaps it would have added more character development--my problem with the film was too much suspense and not enough character--I disliked "The Stranger" because it had too much character and not enough suspense--something like "Touch of Evil" or "Macbeth" has a nice balance... I would aggree that this is not one of Welles' best, however a bad Orson Welles movie is generally around the artistic level of midgrade Hitchcock and better than five movies made by any other filmmaker before 1969. Now stop reading and go buy this thing now: the Hall of Mirrors Scene at the end is more than worth the purchase price. The original cut may have been better. We'll never know. According to rumor on Internet, the cut footage was burned in 1948 due to pressure from Hearst.
Rating:
Summary: Unforgettable style
Review: Even though the story can be confusing, (probably due to Harry Cohn's meddling--Welles was quite a showman and storyteller but not a popular man in Hollywood), this film easily earns five stars for its unforgettable style.
Rating: 
Summary: one of the worst!!
Review: FORGET WHAT YOU'VE HEARD ABOUT THIS BEING ONE OF THE GREATEST FILM NOIR MOVIES OF ALL TIME....IT'S [NOT]...THE CHARACTERS, SCENES, AND CAMERA ANGLES ARE ALL OBNOXIOUS..THE STORY STARTS OUT WITH ORSON WELLS AND HIS ANNOYING ... IRISH ACCENT....THE HUSBAND AND PARTNER ARE BOTH UNLIKEABLE...AND RITA HAYWORTH IS PLAYING A LIE, SOON TO BE DIVORCED FROM HER REAL-LIFE HUSBAND, ORSON WELLS...AND AS FAR AS THE HALL OF MIRRORS SCENE IS CONCERNED, YOU CAN GO TO ANY AMUSEMENT PARK TO GET THE SAME LIVE THRILLS...
Rating:
Summary: Smoke and Mirrors
Review: Had Orson Welles been making this movie up as he shot along it could hardly be more confusing. That may well have been what he did and the story doesn't make a lick of sense. Still, the bizarre characters, staging and editing have a mesmerizing quality to them that keeps "Lady" enjoyable if your tastes run to the unusual in movies. An Irish seaman is taken on as yacht skipper for a rich San Francisco lawyer, then set up for a murder rap. Welles pays a tribute to Rita Hayworth in his last lines, admitting that he was unlikely ever to get over her; she and Everett Sloane are particularly memorable.
Rating: 
Summary: A precious stone that needed a lapidary
Review: I had really high expectations concerning this movie that many categorize as one of Welle's best. Half way into the film I was already disappointed, mainly with the way the story was being developed. The movie is choppy, it has a bad rhythm; don't tell me it was on purpose, because it truly compromised the film's quality. Maybe some of the exotic environment scenes messed up part of the cutting process; too many images to use. Producers and the studio may have a big part of the blame for the bad cutting, it was and sadly it's always going to be like that in film industry.
The characters' tone made them unconvincing. As you might have noticed, these characters are build upon the proclamation of their life philosophy, not upon images, like cinema should be. The narrator, Welles' character, is a fine example. That narrative used is literary and unnecessary. I felt ashamed for Welles, he was able to tell a story using only cinema language, he didn't had to appeal to literary language! This "mistake", I would say, contributed with the bad cutting too. I recognize there are some good punch lines, with nice dramatic effect, but, unfortunately, most of those are bad disposed through the clumpy dialogs.
Something that wonder me in this movie is it's image. The cinematography by Charles Lawton Jr., Rudolph Maté and Joseph Walker is superb! They have managed to keep the noir atmosphere even shooting exotic places, which I find it fascinating. The last sequence in the mirror room is one of those things that make clear how genius Welles and this cinematography crew were. As a matter of fact, most of Welles' films have great cinematography, he must have been very strict at this manner.
It seems to me that this movies is like a precious stone that missed a fine lapidary. I know Welles had more than enough capacity to perform this lapidary work, but something came out wrong. I couldn't just blame Columbia, I don't know exactly what happened. It's really a pity, it could have been a masterpiece, an unique work certainly. In my opinion, even knowing the story is very creative, the plot could be simplified or reduced to pure essential, giving more time to the characters' development and major sequences.
Anyway, this movie is a fine contribution to noir culture; all the basic noir elements are there: alienation of the hero (Welles' character, Michael O'Hara), the femme fatale (Rita Hayworth, as Elsa 'Rosalie' Bannister), predicted tragic ending, and many more. For cinema and mainly film noir fans this film is, even with it's blemishes, something to be checked.
PS: I would rate it as two and a half stars if I could. I really recommend "The Touch of Evil", my favorite Welles'; if you haven't watched you must certainly do.
Rating:
Summary: Watch out for those sharks!
Review: I had seen this film a couple of times and never really warmed up to it, but I thought I'd give the DVD a try. After 3 viewings I think I finally got it. Sure, a lot of it is implausible and weird--but if you can willingly suspend your disbelief you are in for a rich noir ride. The writing is superb, the locations are exotic and evocative, and this baby is dark and cynical to its core! Rita Hayworth proves herself an excellent actress--to balance all of the flesh Welles so lovingly displays of his soon ex-to-be. Why Welles had to saddle himself with the accent is truly beyond me, and I felt it didn't work that well--although it didn't ruin the picture. All the supporting players are evil and sweaty, especially Everett Sloan as the crippled cuckold. I think that crippling is the central metaphor in the film, but more so emotional crippling. All of these people are just twisted and broken inside, and they can't even begin to understand love, loyalty, and compassion. Visually this is portrayed by the funhouse mirror scene, an obvious reference to their narcissism and inability to connect to others as they really are. Well, enough psychobabble. The DVD has some nice extras and we learn a lot about the history and making of the film. Bogdanovitch does a commentary that is rich in many ways, but has two central problems: it is not linked to what is happening on the screen, and it becomes very repetitive at a certain point. This is a gripe I have with a lot of commentary tracks--someone turns on a mic and the subject blabs on without really talking directly about the great stuff happening RIGHT NOW in the movie. The best tracks are very focused on the film, and they integrate all of their information into it. For some great tracks, I recommend Ebert's Citizen Kane, Camille Paglia on Basic Instinct, and the track for the Criterion Notorious. Anyway, Lady from Shanghai is a seminal noir that is visually and thematically satisfying. Give my love to the sunrise!
|
