|
|
 |
|
The Lady from Shanghai Sponsored by Camino Real Hotel 1947 | Not Rated | Crime, Mystery | d. Orson Welles Rita Hayworth, Orson Welles |
|
||
| Throughout his life, Orson Welles had trouble with money. Despite periods of great success in his early career, Welles’ ambitions always outpaced his resources, leaving him stretched thin while supporting his elaborate radio, theatre and film projects (as well as his personal appetites). In 1946, Welles was again short on funds cut a deal with Columbia to write, direct, produce and star in a film in exchange for some funding of his latest stage work. Made quickly in late 1946 and early 1947, the studio would delay release of the film for more than a year as it trimmed Welles’ tale to a manageable length (a recurring pattern in Welles’ life). The Lady from Shanghai was based on the pulp novel If I Die Before I Wake by Sherwood King and in Welles’ hands, became a twisting tale of insurance scams, adultery, frame-ups and murder. The director cast his then-wife Rita Hayworth in the title role and created one of the cinema’s iconic femme fatales (notoriously cutting Hayworth’s trademark long red hair and dyeing what remained blond). The film’s famous finale in an amusement park house of mirrors is a perfectly refracted analog to the film’s convoluted plot, and Welles’ own fragmenting artistic approach as a film magician. - CH | ||