The Lady From Shanghai (1948)

The Lady From Shanghai (1948)

Writer/director Orson Welles' film noir classic, it was an imaginative, complicated, unsettling film noir and taut who-dun-it thriller - a B/W tale of betrayal, lust, a love-hate relationship, greed and murder set within a deadly love triangle. It featured fascinating visuals and tilting compositions, luminous and brilliant camerawork (by Charles Lawton, Jr.), and numerous sub-plots and confounding plot twists.

Orson Welles served as director, producer, screenplay writer, and actor, basing his screenplay upon Sherwood King's 1938 novel If I Die Before I Wake. The moody film, originally titled Take This Woman and then Black Irish, was made when major stars Orson Welles and sexy Rita Hayworth (with dyed and bobbed bleached-blonde hair) - in her last film under contract to Columbia Pictures) - were still married although estranged and drifting apart. [Note: The numerous close-ups of Rita Hayworth in the film were later added by Welles in Hollywood upon orders of the studio, to lend strength to her 'star' power.]

Ultimately due to studio interference, the film's length was severely cut down by one hour, creating an almost incomprehensible, discontinuous, cryptic patchwork from numerous retakes and substantial edits. Although it was filmed in late 1946 and finished in early 1947, it wasn't released until late in 1948. The film was mostly ignored - it failed both at the box-office and as a critical success (there were no Academy Award nominations).

The disjointed, stylistic and daring tale from Columbia Pictures followed the misadventures of Michael O'Hara - a poor Irish seaman (Welles), with fatalistic, Irish-accented voiceovers about how he had become ensnared. At first, he was immediately entranced by Mrs. Elsa 'Rosalie' Bannister (Rita Hayworth, Welles' own estranged wife), a blonde femme fatale, after he rescued her in NYC's Central Park. He soon became mesmerized by her. She was the enigmatic wife of a crippled, older, wealthy San Francisco trial lawyer named Arthur Bannister (Everett Sloane). O'Hara joined her luxury yachting cruise as a working crew member from New York to San Francisco (via the Panama Canal). During the voyage, Bannister's shifty and creepy law-business partner George Grisby (Glenn Anders) joined them, while Michael fell in love with Elsa. He soon found himself embroiled in the illicit love affair and a mysterious plot for 5,000ドル dollars (to kill Grisby, by staging and faking his own death) - the plot eventually turned deadly and implicated him in murder.

The film, told through O'Hara's narration, was shot on locations including Acapulco, San Francisco, and at Columbia Studios sets, and featured numerous classic set-pieces including: the cruise, the jungle picnic, the aquarium scene, the courtroom scene, the chase through a Chinese theatre, and the carnival funhouse and Hall of Mirrors shoot-out climax (shot in San Francisco's Playland).

• the opening voice-over narration was delivered by out-of-work, gullible, wandering Irish seaman Michael O'Hara (Orson Welles) with an Irish brogue accent, as he was strolling on the streets of NYC:
  • "When I start out to make a fool of myself, there's very little can stop me. If I'd known where it would end, I'd never let anything start, if I'd been in my right mind, that is. But once I'd seen her, once I'd seen her, I was not in my right mind for quite some time...me, with plenty of time and nothing to do but get myself in trouble. Some people can smell danger, not me"
• Michael O'Hara first met short-haired blonde femme fatale Elsa Bannister (Rita Hayworth) when she was wearing a polka-dotted white dress, and was seated under the black hood of a horse-drawn carriage on its way to New York's Central Park; after offering her a cigarette that she declined to smoke (and wrapped in her handkerchief), he recollected - in voice-over:
  • "...Once I'd seen her, I was not in my right mind for quite some time...That's how I found her, and from that moment on, I did not use my head very much, except to be thinking of her"

• a few moments later, he discovered her discarded handkerchief (and cigarette) and her purse - thrown down; he rescued her after screams of help as she was being assaulted by a couple of 'unprofessional' thugs; regarding himself as a "brave fella," he fought off the men, and then drove her home in the cabdriver's horse-cab and fancifully imagined her as Princess Rosalie; she claimed that she once worked in Shanghai - hence the film's title; after a few minutes of acting as the cab-driver, he joined her inside the carriage
• he dropped her off at her car garage where there was the coincidental mention of brilliant San Francisco "criminal lawyer" Arthur Bannister (Everett Sloane), although Elsa did not admit that she was married to him; offhandedly, as repayment, she proposed that the between-jobs Michael work on her husband's boat as a deck hand:
  • "If you're a sailor, there's a job for you...Would you like to work for me? I'd like it...We're short a man on the crew."
• the next morning, she was sailing on a yacht (the Circe) to the West Coast via the Panama Canal; she seductively urged him: "l'll make it worth your while"
• Michael was shocked that the garage attendant identified the lady as the wife of the high-priced, celebrated San Francisco lawyer Arthur Bannister; in voice-over, Michael mused mischievously:
  • "Personally, I don't like a girlfriend to have a husband. If she'll fool her husband, I figure she'll fool me...The boob that I am, I thought I could escape her"
• the next morning in the seamen's hiring hall, the famous, older, wealthy trial lawyer Arthur Bannister made his entrance - cruelly prefaced by a view of his double-set of knotted canes that served as warped extensions of his inoperative legs; it was implied that the physically-paralyzed and crippled Bannister ("the world's greatest criminal lawyer") was also asexual and impotent; he inquired about locating O'Hara, who was summoned to speak to him; Bannister was looking for "an able-bodied seaman" who wasn't an habitual drunk

• in a bar with Michael (nicknamed Black Irish) and two other sweaty, robust sailors, Bannister praised Michael for being heroic: "Mike saved my wife's life...Mike's quite a hero, quite a tough guy"; one of the sailors, an old war buddy of O'Hara's named Jake (Lou Merrill), defined what made a guy tough: ("A guy with an edge"); the implication was that Bannister's wealth ("bankroll in (his) pocket") provided him with most of his edge; Michael was forced to take care of the drunken and passed-out Bannister - embroiling himself further into the sinister grip that both Bannisters held him in:
  • voice-over: "Well, it was me that was unconscious. And he was exactly as helpless as a sleeping rattlesnake"
• Michael delivered the drunken Bannister to his yacht in the harbor, where he viewed a glum-faced Elsa dressed as a calendar-girl; she wore a yachtman's suit and cap with white shorts; she urged him to stay: "I wasn't sure you'd come"; when Michael answered: "I'm not staying," she begged: "You've got to stay"; Michael was coerced to take the job when servant-maid Bessie (Evelyn Ellis) urged him to help the vulnerable "child" or damsel in distress:
  • "She needs you bad, you stay"
• again in voice-over, Michael summarized what he was doing on the luxury yacht, first sailing in the West Indies and Caribbean; he saw himself as a self-deceiving "prize fathead" that was "chasing a married woman but that's not the way I want you to look at it"
• the lecherous, weirdly insane, paranoid and sweaty George Grisby (Glenn Anders), Bannister's business legal-partner (who had flown from NYC to Havana, Cuba), joined the group mid-way, and boarded the Circe after lasciviously and voyeuristically viewing Elsa in a bathing suit from an off-shore motorboat as she stood on some rocks and dove off; during Grisby's first conversation with Michael, he asked:
  • "I'm very interested in murders...Would you mind killing another man?...Would you kill me if I gave you the chance? I may give you the chance"
• once Elsa returned to the ship, she hinted to Michael that she loathed her asexual husband and was sexually neglected by him, and that she needed help to be protected; when she drew near to kiss him, he slapped her, but then they fell into each other's embracing arms and kissed passionately; as Grisby sped off in his boat, he witnessed their illicit affair and called out: "So long, kiddies"; Elsa worried:
  • "Now he knows about us"

• while on the deck of the yacht one night, Elsa in a black two-piece bathing suit laid flat on her back on a cushion spread out on the deck; Bannister claimed to Michael that money for countless operations had saved him from a lifetime of crippling paralysis; they listened as Elsa sang the haunting torch song "Please Don't Kiss Me" ("Please don't love me, but if you love me, then don't take your lips or your arms or your love away"); Michael thought to himself:
  • "Talk of money and murder. I must be insane, or else all these people are lunatics"

• Bannister organized a picnic-party that required the entire crew to march into a dangerous jungle along the Mexican coast filled with squawking parrots, slithering snakes, and alligator-infested waters; an important plot point was abruptly inserted into the picnic scene - Bannister told Sidney Broome (Ted de Corsia), the yacht's steward, that he already was painfully aware that he would be the victim of a murder plot:
  • "There's a plot against my life, correct? I'm gonna be murdered"
• Elsa pulled Michael aside and told him that Broome was actually a private divorce detective hired by Bannister to tail and spy on Elsa for evidence of unfaithfulness - and that Bannister was manipulative and domineering in their unloving relationship:
  • "He wants to fix it so I'll never be able to divorce him...He wants to cut me off without a cent"
• during the picnic, Grisby and Grisby teased Elsa about how Michael served as her "big strong bodyguard...with an Irish brogue"; Bannister argued disagreeably with his partner Grisby about his degree of jealousy - and even admitted:
  • "You ought to realize I don't mind it a bit if Michael's in love with my wife. He's young, she's young. He's strong, she's beautiful"
• Elsa stood up and objected to their teasing: "I don't have to listen to you talk like that"; she even agreed with Michael's oft-threatened sentiments that he should quit their awful company:
  • "Why should anyone want to live around us?"

• hateful of her own life and the love triangle forced upon her, Elsa agonized about being in their distasteful and destructive company; Michael arrived and noted their cruel game-playing:
  • "Is this what you folks do for amusement in the evenings, sit around toasting marshmallows and calling each other names?"
• it appeared that Elsa was forced to marry Bannister - either she had been blackmailed about her shady, miserable past in China, or was enticed by his money

• Michael was prompted to recall an experience he had while fishing off Brazil and likened them to a pack of blood-seeking 'sharks.' He remembered that the mad predators had a feeding frenzy upon themselves until none survived:
  • "... in their frenzy, they ate at themselves. You could feel the lust and murder like a wind stingin' your eyes. And you could smell the death reeking up out of the sea. I never saw anything worse until this little picnic tonight. And you know, there wasn't one of them sharks in the whole crazy pack that survived"
• as Michael hiked above Acapulco with Grisby, he noted the beauty and its underlying corruption: ("...you can't hide the hunger and guilt. It's a bright, guilty world")
• at the top of their climb next to jagged peaks above the ocean, Grisby convincingly argued (in his quirky, sing-song voice), that he wished to disappear from the world and escape before Armageddon - a nuclear holocaust that would end the world; on a rocky cliffside peak, O'Hara was asked by Grisby to accept his "straightforward business proposition" - a diabolical murder scheme that paid 5,000ドル dollars:
  • "It's me...I want you to kill me!"
• on a moonlit Acapulco street the next night, Michael told Elsa about Grisby's weird proposal of paid murder-suicide and his fear of the world exploding; she also admitted to having thoughts of suicide for herself, and asked Michael if he ever considered killing himself; she was already aware of Grisby's insane, suicidal impulses: "He's not sane, neither is Arthur"; Michael punched out Broome, who was tailing them and spying on them, and then ran after Elsa who had fled the scene; he promised to protectively care for her and provide a safe haven away from the evil of her surroundings, but she was doubtful that as a "a foolish knight errant," he would be able to fulfill his promises:
  • "You're big and strong, but you just don't know how to take care of yourself. So how could you take care of me?"
• the yacht arrived in San Francisco/Sausalito in the early fall, according to Michael's voice-over; he considered himself a fish that had already been thoroughly "hooked" (literally swallowed and eaten alive) by Elsa's pleas for aid; he naively believed he could run off with Elsa, save her from the sea of shark's blood, and take care of her (with the 5,000ドル bounty for killing Grisby); the foolish Michael fantasized about "running off with you [Elsa] to a desert island to eat berries and goat's milk"; however, she doubted his realistic ability to support her and declined his offer: "And I'd have to take in washing to support you"; when she heard about Michael's promised 5,000ドル dollars, she smiled, knowing that he had accepted, in his mind, Grisby's diabolical murder scheme
• to carry out Grisby's absurd plan, in Grisby's office that evening, Michael listened to part of the typed, confessional statement that he must sign; he also received half of the payout money; by now, Grisby had ruled out suicide (it's "against the law"), and instead wanted Michael to help him fake his murder; Grisby described how he would disappear; he convinced the gullible O'Hara, with double-talk and insane logic, that a murderer couldn't be convicted, in California, if there was no corpse to be found:
  • "You swear you killed me, but you can't be arrested. That's the law. Look it up for yourself. There's no such thing as homicide unless they find a corpse"
• he implied that his wily partner, Bannister, would cleverly exonerate O'Hara

• the next morning at 9 AM, Michael secretly met Elsa in San Francisco's Steinhart Aquarium; during the clandestine meeting between the two secret lovers Michael and Elsa - they were deliberately positioned before predatory fish; he told her of his love and arrangement of rescue plans so that they could be together; she encouraged her "beloved fool" to elope with her after the murder plot, and begged:
  • "Tell me where we'll go, Michael. Will you carry me off with you into the sunrise?...Just take me there. Take me quick. Take me"
• after a passionate kiss, he admitted his "foolish" decision to raise money by pretending to murder Grisby; she read his pre-signed, fake confession with the description of the crime to be committed in Sausalito; Elsa tried to warn the gullible Michael about her conniving husband who was undeniably behind Grisby's proposal: ("It's a trap of some kind...I'll swear my husband's behind this whole thing"); the sequence ended with another kiss - she passionately called him her "beloved fool" as the screen blackened

• the night of the 'murder' at the Bannisters' house in San Rafael, Sidney Broome (the Bannisters' butler/detective) revealed to Grisby that he knew all about his sneaky and dastardly plan - to kill Arthur Bannister and then frame Michael; Broome attempted to bribe Grisby to pay him to keep silent; the stunned Grisby shot Broome, point-blank, and mortally wounded him - a major plot twist

• Grisby returned the gun to Michael (to use for Grisby's own planned but faked 'killing'), and they drove together to the Sausalito dock; however on the way, they rear-ended a truck that smashed their windshield in two places and bloodied Grisby; Grisby rationalized that the concerned truck driver would make a "good witness" who saw them just before the 'murder'
• meanwhile, Elsa had heard the gunshot and found Broome dying on her kitchen floor; she listened as he told her that he knew about the plot against her husband:
  • "There's gonna be a murder. Ain't gonna be no fake murder, not this time. Somebody's gonna be killed...Yeah, your husband. Maybe he's the one who's gonna be knocked off...Could be? You'd better get down to his office if you want to do anything about it"
• once they arrived in Sausalito, Grisby pulled away from the harbor in a speedboat, as Michael took multiple shots into the ground to fake the 'murder'; when he phoned the Bannister house, he heard the last dying words of Broome - also revealing to him Grisby's sinister scheme:
  • "Get down to the office, Montgomery Street. You was framed. Grisby didn't want to disappear. He just wanted an alibi - and you're it. You're the fall guy. Grisby's gone down there to kill Bannister, now"
• in the complicated plot, Michael drove to downtown San Francisco, where he was apprehended by police, for being suspicious (blood, a confessional statement, and a fired gun discovered on Michael's person); he was horrified to learn that Bannister was still alive, and Grisby was dead! (laid out on a stretcher); Michael was arrested - incriminated by the false confession that he had signed [it shouldn't have incriminated him], and framed on a fabricated murder charge of Bannister's business partner; Bannister would act as O'Hara's legal representative, defending him for both murders (Broome and Grisby) and reluctantly serving as Elsa's protector
• Michael realized that he had become the fall guy for Grisby's murder and that a vengeful Bannister was now representing him as his defense lawyer for a court trial; he remarked on the insanity of his situation:
  • "And me, charged with a couple of murders I did not commit. Either me or the rest of the whole world is absolutely insane"
• in the Hall of Justice outside the courtroom (and near where Michael was jailed), the Bannisters sat together and conversed about Michael's innocence and Grisby's alleged involvement and plot to fake his own death; there were problems with the case, one of which was that the gun that killed Grisby couldn't be found; Michael's own story about how Grisby had hired him to pretend to kill him wouldn't stand up to scrutiny; Bannister asserted:
  • "If your Irishman doesn't want to go to the gas chamber, he's got to have to trust me....I wouldn't trust him with my wife...I've never lost a case, remember? Besides, my wife might think he was a martyr. I've got to defend him. I haven't any choice. And neither have you"
• while Elsa visited Michael in jail, he tried to explain to her that Grisby killed Broome and wanted to murder Bannister too, because "he couldn't get a divorce...so he could get away from his wife"; Elsa informed him that Grisby wasn't even married
• Michael's kangaroo-court trial was an unforgettable, farcical courtroom sequence (a vaudevillian theatre of the absurd) that made justice seem ludicrously administered - with a disruptive audience, an ineffectual judge, a quirky jury, and the fact that defense attorney Bannister was called to the stand as a witness, to testify against his own client; Elsa also testified that Michael was "fond" of her, and that she kissed Michael - in public view - at the aquarium

• after downing a handful of Bannister's pain pills, Michael created bedlam in the courtroom, and was able to overpower two guards and escape; his objective was to find the gun that killed Grisby - and shift the blame to the murderer; he joined another group of jurors on their way to lunch outside
• Michael fled into the Chinatown district of San Francisco where he ducked inside the Sunsing (or Mandarin) Theatre during the performance of a costumed, stylized Oriental melodramatic opera on stage; Elsa followed him and sat next to Michael in the audience to avoid discovery by authorities searching in the aisles; to his shock in another plot twist, Michael discovered the gun that killed Grisby was in Elsa's possession in her handbag; just before he passed out, he denounced her as a blonde Circe - as he stuck the gun into her ribs:
  • "You killed Grisby, yes. You're the killer."

• in true film noir fashion, the murderer and mastermind of the whole affair turned out to be the villainess Elsa - she literally 'shanghai'd' him; she had planned to kill her husband (with co-conspirator Grisby) for a share of the money, and then frame Michael for the crime, while Grisby disappeared (or was killed too) and was presumed dead by everyone; the plan was fouled up when Grisby unexpectedly killed Broome, so she killed Grisby herself, off-screen - (or she warned Bannister to kill Grisby?) and Michael was blamed for it
• Michael was dragged away, kidnapped by Elsa's Chinese servants, and taken to a hideout - a deserted, off-season funhouse/amusement park; the angular, expressionistic surroundings in the "Crazy House" reflected Michael's mental instability; he careened down a chute (he was literally the "fall guy") and emerged into the Hall of Mirrors on a rotating, unstable floor; the Hall of Mirrors (the Magic Mirror Maze) was constructed with myriad mirrors - huge, distorted closeups mingle with multiple fragmented images
• the visually-intriguing, climactic confrontation and shoot-out in the Hall of Mirrors remains one of the greatest visual effects in cinematic history; the three main principal characters were reunited in the funhouse
• blonde femme fatale wife Elsa explained her side of the story:
  • "George was supposed to take care of Arthur. But he lost his silly head and shot Broome. After that, I knew I couldn't trust him. He was mad. He had to be shot"
• Michael then asked about his own fate with her - cynically asking:
  • "Into the sunrise? You and me, or you and Grisby?"
• as O'Hara watched, Bannister delivered an ominous speech to his wife before firing commenced - he vengefully threatened his rotten wife with a letter he had written to the D.A. explaining her guilt and Michael's innocence:
  • "...I presume you think that if you murder me here, your sailor friend will get the blame and you'll be free to spend my money. Well, dear, you aren't the only one who wants me to die. Our good friend, the District Attorney, is just itching to open a letter that I left with him. The letter tells all about you, lover. So you'd be foolish to fire that gun. With these mirrors, it's difficult to tell. You are aiming at me, aren't you? I'm aiming at you, lover. Of course, killing you is killing myself. It's the same thing. But you know, I'm pretty tired of both of us"

• the couple self-destructively drew their guns and shot at multiple likenesses of each other, as the screen erupted into a wild kaleidoscope of smashed glass, multiple distorted mirrors that broke and shattered, as they both mortally-wounded each other; their aim was confused by the contradictory mirror images that broke into splinters during the wild shooting as one fake image splintered and another replaced it; still in character, Bannister uttered his last words:
  • "You know, for a smart girl, you make a lot of mistakes. You should have let me live. You're gonna need a good lawyer"

• witnessing the double murders as he stepped back and watched them destroy each other, Michael was horrified by the shattering of glass as the deceptive facades of their evil images were reflected and then blown away, and all that was left in the violent shoot-out was their guilt, greedy hunger, pain and misery
• Elsa stumbled with Michael into another room where she engaged in her last exchange with him during a prolonged death scene; it was filmed at ground level down next to her on the floor, as she agonized over her death; he recalled their conversation in the streets of Acapulco about the badness of the world, and his fishing tale about blood-thirsty sharks
• she admitted her own "original nature" had delved into corruptness and evil, and that she had surrendered to "badness", but her pleading failed to gain his sympathy, even after an appeal to his sentimentality
  • Elsa: (gasping) "He and George, and now me!"
    Michael: "Like the sharks, mad with their own blood. Chewing away at their own selves."
    Elsa: "It's true. I made a lot of mistakes."
    Michael: "You said the world's bad and we can't run away from the badness. And you're right there. But you said we can't fight it. We must deal with the badness, make terms. And then the badness'll deal with you, and make its own terms, in the end, surely."
    Elsa: "You can fight, but what good is it? Goodbye."
    Michael: "You mean we can't win?"
    Elsa: "No, we can't win. (poetically) Give my love to the sunrise."
    Michael: "We can't lose, either. Only if we quit."
    Elsa: "And you're not going to?"
    Michael: "Not again!"
    Elsa: "Oh Michael, I'm afraid. (He strolled away) Michael? Come back here. Michael! Please! I don't want to die! I DON'T WANT TO DIE!"
• in the film's conclusion, unhooked from her charming and fatal attraction, Michael abandoned her; as Michael left her to die alone, he walked away to call the police; he predicted that he might become more ambivalent, forget Elsa and put her corruptive influences behind him - if he grew old enough:
  • voice-over: "I went to call the cops, but I knew she'd be dead before they got there and I'd be free. Bannister's note to the DA (would) fix it. I'd be innocent officially, but that's a big word - innocence. Stupid's more like it. Well, everybody is somebody's fool. The only way to stay out of trouble is to grow old, so I guess I'll concentrate on that. Maybe I'll live so long that I'll forget her. Maybe I'll die tryin'"