Some people disagree about what makes an Orson Welles film. Some say that in order to truly be considered his film he must have acted as director but in my opinion, even when confined to a role and excluded from the creative process, he never failed to make a movie his own. Whether he was actor, writer, director or all three tell me what your favourite Orson Welles movie was?
I adore this film, about an escaped Nazi war criminal who was deliberately set free to lead the authorities to Franz Kindler (Welles). Starring Edward G Robinson as the tenacious detective Mr Wilson.
The Lady from Shanghai is a 1948 black-and-white film noir directed by Orson Welles and starring Welles, his then-estranged wife Rita Hayworth, and Everett Sloane. It is based on the novel If I Die Before I Wake by Sherwood King.
The story begins with Michael O'Hara (Welles) meeting the beautiful blonde Elsa (Hayworth) as she rides a horse-drawn coach in Central Park. Shortly thereafter, three hooligans waylay the coach and attempt to rob and possibly rape Elsa. Michael is able to rescue her, after which he escorts her home. Michael reveals he is a seaman, and learns Elsa and her husband, the famous, handicapped criminal defense attorney Arthur Bannister (Sloane), are newly arrived in New York City from Shanghai. They are on their way to San Francisco via the Panama Canal. Michael, who is attracted to Elsa, agrees to sign on as an able seaman aboard Bannister's yacht.
After setting sail, they are joined on the boat by Bannister's law partner, George Grisby (Anders), who proposes that Michael "murder" him in a plot to fake his own death and collect the insurance money for himself. He promises Michael $5,000 and explains that since he wouldn't really be dead and thus there would be no corpse, Michael couldn't be convicted of murder. Michael agrees to this, intending to use the money to run away with Elsa, with whom he's begun a relationship. Grisby has Michael sign a pre-typed confession.
On the eve that the crime is to be carried out, Sydney Broome, a private investigator who has been following Elsa on her husband's orders, confronts Grisby. Broome has learned of Grisby's plan and that he is actually intending to murder Bannister, frame Michael for the crime, and escape suspicion by pretending to have also been murdered. Grisby shoots Broome and leaves him for dead. Unaware of what has happened, Michael proceeds with the night's arrangement and sees Grisby off on a motorboat before shooting a gun into the air to draw attention to himself. Meanwhile, a severely injured Broome goes to Elsa for help and warns her that Grisby is intending to kill her husband.
Thinking the plan is done with, Michael calls to inform Elsa, but is surprised to find Broome on the other end of the line. Broome's dying words are to warn Michael that Grisby was setting him up. Concerned, Michael rushes to Bannister's office just in time to see Bannister is quite alive but that the police are removing Grisby's body from the premises. The police instantly find evidence that Michael was the killer, including his signed confession, and take him away.
At trial, Bannister has offered to act as Michael's attorney and feels the case is more likely to be won if he pleads justifiable homicide, due to all the evidence against his client. However, as the trial progresses, Bannister learns of the extent of his wife's relationship with Michael and ultimately takes pleasure in his suspicion that they will lose the case. While boasting of this, he reveals to Michael that he knows who the real killer was. On Elsa's advice, Michael is able to escape from the courtroom by feigning a suicide attempt before the verdict is to be announced. Elsa follows, and she and Michael hide out in a theater in Chinatown. Elsa calls some Chinese friends to meet her. As they wait and pretend to watch the show, Michael discovers that she was in fact the one who killed Grisby. Here Elsa's Chinese friends arrive, and take Michael (unconscious) to an abandoned Fun House. When he wakes, he realizes that Elsa and Grisby had been planning to murder Bannister and frame him for the crime, but that Broome's involvement ruined the scheme and obliged Elsa to kill Grisby for her own protection.
The film features a surreal climac
