Very well executed

Best movie of this year hands down!

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

I think Rita Hayworth is one of the classiest and sexiest female stars of her era. I always liked Orson Welles until I saw him in this overrated film. Orson Welles plays a down on his luck "Irish" seaman named Michael O'Hara who agrees to steer the yacht of wealthy criminal lawyer Mr.Arthur Bannister (played by Everett Sloane) and Michael O'Hara's vision of loveliness Mrs. Elsa Bannister (Rita Hayworth). There is one other key character in this rather convoluted story and that is the very weird talking George Grisby (Glenn Anders).Although this film is rated a high 7.7 average by IMDB and 22,000 fans I cannot rate it higher than a 5 out of 10. I didn't like the story basically and how it all played out. I thought Orson Welles was poorly cast since his Irish accent was such a joke. As for the weird talking George Grisby I thought actor Glenn Anders was trying to steal all the scenes he was in with his contorted facial expressions which only made me dislike the film even more.Of course the director Orson Welles himself attempted to utilize some state of the art split scene images such as in the Chinese arcade house of mirrors. I did not see this piece of the movie as a classic scene as many seemed to state. Rita Hayworth's connection to the chinese community in which she (or someone else who lip synched for the beautiful Rita Hayworth) is when she tells the Irish seaman Michael O'Hara that she lived in Shanghai, and as she enters the Chinese Playhouse she speaks in Chinese to the ticket taker. Well that may have been one way the producers felt the film would do well overseas if they interjected a few lines of Chinese dialect. I just found it confusing since neither Mr. or Mrs. Bannister were ever seen speaking in Chinese on land or while they were out on sea. The way the characters were killed off were also laughable and with limited acting ability even by the gorgeous Rita Hayworth. Sorry Rita but this was not a memorable movie that I would want to keep in my personal classic film(s) library.I give the film a 5 out of 10 rating and I believe I am being generous.

This classic film opens with sailor Michael O'Hara rescuing beautiful blonde Elsa 'Rosalie' Bannister from a group of muggers in Central Park. Afterwards as he takes her home he tells her that he is a sailor and she offers him a job crewing her husband's yacht which the couple plan to sail from New York to San Francisco by way of the Caribbean and the Panama Canal. Initially he isn't keen to take the job but eventually he takes in and joins the Bannisters and their friend George Grisby on their voyage. As time passes it is clear that Michael is developing feelings for Elsa; something George has clearly noticed. Then George approaches him with a very strange proposition; he wants to pay Michael $5,000 to murder him! Actually he wants Michael to tell the police that he killed him so he can start a new life on the insurance money, he assures Michael that without a body he can't be prosecuted. Of course it doesn't go as Michael hoped and he finds himself on trial for his life with Rosalie's husband, a renowned defence attorney, representing him.Fans of film noir are sure to like this as is has all the hallmarks of the genre; murder, a twisting plot and most importantly a beautiful femme fatale. Orson Welles does a solid job as Michael, the ordinary man caught up in a deadly scheme, even if his Irish accent seems a bit off. Rita Hayworth is impressive as Rosalie, a woman more dangerous than she appears, Everett Sloane is good as her husband Arthur as is Glenn Anders as George. The story starts relatively slowly, giving us time to get to know the characters then quickly picks up the pace as the plot emerges and the danger becomes apparent. This all leads up to an inventive finale in the hall of mirrors in an out of season funfair. There are moments of comedy; most notably the court room scene where Arthur is called as a witness and ends up cross examining himself! Overall I'd say that this is an impressive film that fans of the genre should watch.

. . . as he's the miscast "man in the background outside the Cantina" guy, when he SHOULD be playing the part of the foolish sailor, "Michael O'Hara." Unfortunately, THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI suffers from the same flaw that would later hamper the picture ROCKY: Writer's Blockhead. Sylvester Stallone thought just because he wrote the ROCKY story, that somehow entitled him to portray the title boxer character himself. If he could have worked through this hubris, his idea could have become a more successful film starring an accomplished actor as ROCKY, such as Robert De Niro or Bruce Dern. Similarly, Aussie Flynn's Irish brogue surely would have been more convincingly foreign than that of Orson Welles. And since Mr. Welles just has Michael standing by idly during the Shoot-out at the O.K. Funhouse, Errol clearly would have ad-libbed some bit of Swashbucklery to enliven the proceedings. Furthermore, Errol was too much of a gentleman to allow Rita Hayworth's character to die alone (wife or no wife in Real Life). But what else could you expect, knowing how these two blokes met their historical ends? Errol became the actual ROBIN HOOD, leading Castro's boys to Victory in Cuba (and getting bumped off by the CIA Black Ops guys for his success). Welles occasionally waddled on set to make TV ads for some of the products he favored during his fatal case of gluttony. Elvis may have died in his john with a fried peanut butter and banana sandwich at hand, but at least The King wasn't whimpering about some old sled!

If you like your noir with a little Latin beat, this could be right up your alley. The title is a bit of a misnomer though, since 'The Lady', Elsa Bannister (Rita Hayworth) wasn't from Shanghai, she just happened to be there once. If I hadn't heard all the caveats from the reviewer who introduced the picture on Turner Classics, I wouldn't have considered it to be a 'flawed' picture. Apparently producer Harry Cohn who financed the thing had a lot of problems with the finished film, and had Orson Welles re-shoot a lot of the scenes with Hayworth to feature her glamorous side, hence all the steamy close-ups. Welles was married to Hayworth at the time even though the marriage was kaput, so watching both of them get passionate on screen must have been a real exercise in acting effort.You might need to catch the story a couple of times to figure out the murder plot, but it's all spelled out by the principals - Grisby (Glenn Anders) killed Broome (Ted de Corsia) when Broome discovered the plan to kill Arthur Bannister (Everett Sloane) and frame Michael (Welles) for the murder. Elsa (Hayworth) killed Grisby once she knew Michael had written the confession, but that left her husband still alive to represent Michael as the world's greatest criminal attorney. The fun house mirror maze would have worked out fine for Elsa if she and Arthur hadn't shot each other, but I guess you can't have everything.The schlub in the story was Michael, but he knew that all along. He inadvertently managed to follow the premise he offered at the start of the picture - "One who follows his nature keeps his original nature in the end". Apparently so did all the rest, managing to fulfill their nature as sharks, mad with their own blood.