The Lady from Shanghai October 3, 2006

The Lady from Shanghai

Directed by Orson Welles
US 1948, 35mm, b/w, 87 min.
With Rita Hayworth, Orson Welles, Everett Sloane

A box-office and critical failure in 1948, The Lady from Shanghai is now considered one of Orson Welles’ masterpieces, despite its vexed production history. Welles’ film features a controversially blonde Rita Hayworth (in her last film under contract to Columbia Pictures) as an enigmatic temptress who lures an unsuspecting Welles into a complex murder plot. Filmed in part on Errol Flynn’s yacht, the Zaca, the film has become famous for the climactic ending – a cornucopica shoot-out in a fun-house hall of mirrors that has become a classic moment of Hollywood Noir.

Official Website: http://hcl.harvard.edu/hfa/films/2006fall/chinatown.html#lady