The Lady of Shanghai

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Movie
German title The Lady of Shanghai
Original title The Lady from Shanghai
Country of production United States
original language English , Mandarin
Publishing year 1947
length 87 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Orson Welles
script Orson Welles
production Orson Welles,
William Castle ,
Richard Wilson
music Heinz Roemheld
camera Charles Lawton Jr. ,
Rudolph Maté
cut Viola Lawrence
occupation
synchronization

The Lady of Shanghai (original title: The Lady from Shanghai ) is an American detective film in the style of film noir from 1947. The main roles were played by Rita Hayworth and Orson Welles , who also directed. Sherwood King's novel If I Die Before I Wake , which Welles wrote down into a script, served as a literary model . At the time, both financially and critically, the film developed into a classic in film history, which set new standards with its visual effects, especially in the legendary "Spiegelkabinett" scene. The Lady of Shanghai was inducted into the National Film Registry in 2018 .

action

In New York's Central Park , the Irish sailor Michael O'Hara meets a beautiful and mysterious woman named Elsa in a carriage. When thieves try to rob her, Michael saves her life and she lets him drive her for a while. Elsa is married to the well-known lawyer Arthur Bannister, who is on crutches because of a disability. The following day, Bannister offers Michael a job on his yacht. Michael does not want to accept the offer at first, but when Elsa asks him, he agrees.

From New York, the yacht named Circe sets sail for San Francisco . On the way, Bannister's business partner George Grisby also joins them and goes on board. During the journey, Michael increasingly falls for Elsa's charms, who, as he later learns, only married the crippled and much older Bannister because he threatened to reveal her dubious past in Shanghai . Elsa enters into a liaison with Michael, but excludes a divorce from her wealthy husband for financial reasons. Shortly after the yacht anchored off the Mexican coast, Michael and Elsa noticed that they were being watched by Sidney Broome, the yacht's steward. This was hired by Bannister to keep an eye on Elsa.

In Acapulco, Grisby takes Michael into his confidence and tells him that he wants to fake his own murder on the trip so that he can collect the money from his life insurance and then disappear. He explains the details to Michael and offers him $ 5,000 if he pretends to be a murderer to the police. Grisby assures Michael that if a body is not found, he cannot be convicted of murder. Michael finally signs the confession in order to start a new life with Elsa with the money. But Broome finds out about Grisby and is convinced that his plan is part of a murderous plot against Bannister, his client. Grisby shoots Broome, who shortly before his death is able to tell Elsa that Grisby wants to kill her husband.

Meanwhile, Michael carries out his part of the plan and shoots three shots into the air in the harbor while Grisby drives away in a motorboat. Shortly afterwards, however, Grisby's body is found. Based on his written confession, Michael is arrested by the police. When Elsa visits him in his prison cell, she tells him that Bannister is ready to defend him in court. Although Michael doesn't trust her husband, he has no choice. However, Bannister intentionally wants to lose the case so that Michael ends up on death row. When he reveals this to his client, Michael causes a tumult in the court. He swallows a handful of sleeping pills, whereupon he manages to escape and hide in a theater in Chinatown . Elsa, who has followed him, finds him between the rows of seats and offers to help. Michael discovers a revolver in her handbag and concludes that she must be the real killer. When the sleeping pills start to work and Michael loses consciousness, Elsa's Chinese followers take him to an amusement park where they want to eliminate him. When he comes to, he realizes that he's caught up in a murderous plot. Grisby and Elsa had planned the murder of their husband together and then shared the inheritance. To kill Bannister, Grisby needed an alibi, which is why he wanted to stage his own death with Michael's help. But when Broome saw through Grisby's intentions and Elsa had to fear that Broome would call the police and the lead would lead to her, she decided to kill Grisby.

In a mirror cabinet, Michael now witnesses Elsa and Bannister shooting each other. Previously, Bannister made sure that the public prosecutor received a letter in which he disclosed everything about Elsa's past and her guilt and thus exonerated Michael. With the last of her strength, Elsa desperately calls after Michael, who is turning away.

background

prehistory

Multi-talented Orson Welles had created an innovative milestone in film history with Citizen Kane in 1941 at the age of only 26 . Since his films, above all The Splendor of the House of Amberson (1942), often exceeded the budget and flopped at the box office, it became increasingly difficult for Welles to realize his film projects in Hollywood's studio system . In the summer of 1946 he instead staged a lush musical version of Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days (1873) on Broadway with the music and songs of Cole Porter . The producer was Mike Todd , who ten years later was to produce the screen adaptation of the same name with David Niven . After Todd got out of Welles' costly Broadway project, Welles found himself forced to finance the musical himself. When he ran out of money and urgently needed $ 50,000 to pay for the costumes that had already been made, he reached out to Harry Cohn , the head of Columbia Pictures . On the phone, he convinced him to give him the money he needed, with the promise of writing the script for a Columbia film for him in return, as well as directing, producing and playing a leading role. Since Welles had recently proven with the crime thriller The Trace of the Stranger (1946) that he was quite capable of directing a commercially successful film, the producer got involved in the deal. When Cohn asked what the new film should be called, Welles spontaneously gave him the title of a book that he could see from his phone booth: If I Die Before I Wake by Sherwood King - a detective novel, the Welles, as he would later told never read. The film rights for the novel were already owned by producer William Castle , who was then named co-producer.

script

The script that Welles then wrote was only partially based on King's template. He wrote a first draft within three days while staying in a hotel on Catalina Island . He converted the male hero from a chauffeur into an Irish sailor and added numerous details and surprising twists to the plot. In addition, Welles moved most of the events to Mexico and San Francisco , while New York and Long Island are the locations of the plot in the novel . The English film title changed several times during the making process from the original If I Die Before I Wake , to Black Irish or Take This Woman , until the decision was finally made for The Lady from Shanghai . Welles spontaneously made changes to the script while filming was still in progress, especially as the Hollywood censorship, the production code , classified some scenes as immoral and therefore unacceptable.

occupation

In addition to his role as director, screenwriter and producer, Welles wanted to take on the male lead from the start, which promised him an additional share in the profits of the film. A few supporting roles have gone to members of Welles' acting troupe at the Mercury Theater , including Everett Sloane as the crippled criminal defense attorney Arthur Bannister and Erskine Sanford as a judge. Carl Frank, a well-known radio announcer and also an actor with the Mercury Theater, made his screen debut in the role of District Attorney Galloway.

Welles had actually planned the young, still unknown French actress Barbara Laage for the title character , but Ida Lupino was also temporarily in discussion for the role. But Rita Hayworth , Columbia's biggest star and at that time still Welles' wife, absolutely wanted to appear in a film by her husband and, with her status at Columbia, ensure that the project was converted from an initially planned B-film into an expensive large-scale production . At the instigation of the studio, she finally got the role of the unscrupulous Elsa Bannister. Cast against her type, Hayworth also tried to free herself from her image as a “glamor star”, which was mainly shaped by her title role in Gilda (1946). In order to finally be taken seriously by the critics as an actress, she agreed to change her appearance. “Rita couldn't just come across as the very popular pin-up girl; she needed a whole new look, ”Welles said later. He suggested converting her trademark, the famous titian red mane, into a “topaz blonde” short hairstyle in order to replace the Gilda- typical sensuality with an ice-cold “ femme fatale look ” for the new role . On the day that Columbia's hairstylist Helen Hunt cut off Hayworth's locks, 16 photographers were present to document the event effectively. Many Hayworth supporters were shocked by the new hairstyle, while others asked in vain for a curl in their fan letters.

Filming

Errol Flynn's yacht, the Zaca

The shooting extended from October 1946 to the end of February 1947. During this time Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth were still married to each other, but were already separated. Despite their marital differences, the director's work with his leading actress was friendly and respectful, according to crew members. On weekends when there was no filming, they sometimes flew to Mexico City to watch bullfights on site. Some sources claim Hayworth tried to save their marriage by shooting together. Others prove that she had already finally come to terms with the end of their relationship.

The first scene in New York used archival footage of Brooklyn Bridge and Central Park , while Welles and Hayworth were shot in a carriage at Columbia Pictures' studios on Gower Street, Hollywood. Errol Flynn's famous schooner , the Zaca , served as a luxurious yacht with the name Circe , which refers to Hayworth and Elsa Bannister's seductive aura . Since Flynn was friends with Welles, he agreed to lend him the sailing ship for the film and to steer it himself.

The port area of ​​Sausalito, a location for the film

For the scenes in Acapulco , the entire film team traveled to Mexico for 28 days, where the port and the picturesque neighborhoods of Acapulco served as backdrops. For a shot of Hayworth jumping off a rock into the sea and then basking in the sun, Welles had more than two dozen Mexicans remove all crabs and snakes from the rocks as a precaution and also sent divers into the water to keep dangerous sea creatures such as barracudas and sharks away and thus to ensure the safety of Hayworth. However, the Mexican heat and numerous stinging insects made it difficult for the film crew, so that there were often delays in the shooting schedule. Donald Ray Cory, an assistant to the cameraman, died of a heart attack early on in Mexico .

The scenes in San Francisco were also shot on original locations, including the nearby town of Sausalito in San Francisco Bay , the Steinhart Aquarium in Golden Gate Park , the Mandarin Theater in Chinatown and the Whitney's Playland amusement park, where the exterior shots of the last scenes were made.

Interference from the studio

Harry Cohn and his studio Columbia Pictures initially gave Welles a free hand in the production and design of the film. But when Cohn saw the first rough cut, he is said to have been more than confused by the confused plot. After storming out of the screening room angrily, he offered $ 1,000 to anyone who could explain the plot of the film to him. Cohn also saw the reputation of his greatest star, Rita Hayworth, endangered: Welles deliberately portrayed her as an ice-cold femme fatale with unconventional camera angles and unflattering lighting. It was also the last film with Hayworth under her old Columbia contract that she was not yet part of the profits, which is why Cohn was desperate to have a box-office hit to get Hayworth's box office traction one last time.

According to Cohn's objections, Welles himself is said to have had doubts about his work, which is why he agreed to revise the film without much resistance. Individual scenes were then rewritten and re-filmed. For glamorous close-ups of Hayworth, cameraman Rudolph Maté was hired , who had already staged it in Gilda . Cohn also insisted that Hayworth perform a song as in Gilda or in her film musicals such as Es tanzt die Göttin (1944). The composer Doris Fisher and the songwriter Allan Roberts wrote the melancholy song Please Don't Kiss Me for this purpose , which Elsa sings on board the Circe , but for which Hayworth was dubbed by Anita Ellis , as in Gilda .

The budget and schedule, which were already high due to the exotic backdrops with elaborate film sets, were far exceeded by the subsequent shoot. Originally, $ 1.25 million and 60 days of shooting were planned. In the end, the production cost for 90 days of shooting was two million dollars.

Since Columbia seemed the original 150 minutes of the film too long, The Lady of Shanghai was shortened by more than a third to 87 minutes. Viola Lawrence , who was responsible for many of Hayworth's star vehicles, was employed as a film editor. The cut material has not reappeared and was probably destroyed by Columbia. Especially the scenes in the Mandarin Theater in Chinatown and in the Cabinet of Mirrors were actually much longer according to Welles' concept. Welles himself was very dissatisfied with the finished cut and complained that Columbia had fundamentally changed the film. He later said that The Lady of Shanghai "was an experiment for something that shouldn't be done." But what bothered him most was the new film music contributed by Heinz Roemheld and the one with the recurring theme of Please Don't Kiss Me differed greatly from the melodies originally selected. In his opinion, the new music destroyed the atmosphere of the film. The “mirror cabinet scene”, for example, should be shown without any music in order to create more tension. Welles found the musical accompaniment of Hayworth's jump from a rock so ridiculous that he compared the scene to "Donald Duck's wild jump into space".

Film analysis

Themes and motifs

The plot is characterized by genre-typical elements of film noir such as lust, greed, betrayal and fatalism . As in Gilda or In the Net of Passions (1946), the starting point is the constellation of a beautiful woman between two men. In The Lady of Shanghai it even becomes a “Menage à quatre” when Michael, Elsa and their disabled husband are joined by his business partner Grisby. As in Billy Wilder's film noir Woman without a Conscience (1944) or again as in Gilda , the title character's husband is equipped with walking aids and thus portrayed as impotent. For Arthur Bannister Elsa is a trophy that serves as compensation for his crippled body. His competitor Michael, on the other hand, is young and physically strong. He immediately feels drawn to Elsa and lets himself be seduced by her. Although Michael suspects that he will be exploited and end up as a deceived fool, he fatalistically accepts both Elsa and Grisby's suggestion. Elsa is the classic femme fatale . Married to a rich man she hates, she plans his murder to preserve her dignity and to cash in on the inheritance. While she reveals little about her character, her dubious past in Shanghai, and her intentions, she reveals much of her body on board the Circe in order to seduce Michael. Elsa's concrete connection to Shanghai, the mysterious place that is mentioned in the title but is never the setting for the plot, remains a great mystery of the film. The Chinese metropolis exerted a great attraction on Hollywood, especially in the 1930s and 1940s, and represented the exotic and the erotic in films such as Shanghai Express (1932) and Settlement in Shanghai (1941).

"Orson Welles plays with stereotypes with such virtuosity, with set pieces from film noir and hardboiled crime thriller, that The Lady of Shanghai becomes a fascinating, highly artificial grotesque, a film that always flirtatiously with its flirtatious design."

- Heinz – Jürgen Köhler, films from the 40s

The parallels to Gilda - a beautiful woman between two men, one of whom is rich and impotent, the other young and strong, as well as the exotic locations - were deliberately drawn. In a scene from The Lady of Shanghai , Gilda also echoes in the form of the melody of a song entitled Amado Mio , which Rita Hayworth performs while dancing in the 1946 film. Orson Welles wanted to use these references to commemorate Hayworth's most famous role in order to dismantle the image of the sensual Gilda with the murderous Elsa.

Circe and Odysseus , painting by Hubert Maurer (around 1785)

The mirrors in the final scene are a typical film noir motif, reflecting vanity, intrigue and criminal machinations. When they shoot each other at their mirror images, Elsa and Bannister symbolically destroy their masks, behind which they hid their true intentions and secrets, and finally themselves. Their power-greedy plans and intrigues have literally turned into a heap of broken glass. Water such as the sea, on which a large part of the action takes place, or in the aquarium serves as a motif, which, like the mirrors, has a reflective effect and also has a mysterious, hypnotic and illusory quality.

In addition to symbols from fairy tales, such as the carriage ride at the beginning of the film, the Lady of Shanghai also contains references to Greek mythology . The journey on a sailboat from New York to San Francisco alludes to Homer's Odyssey . Welles, who was finding it increasingly difficult to find work as a director in Hollywood and therefore trundled from studio to studio, corresponded in a certain way to Odysseus on his long wandering. As a seaman Michael O'Hara he slips into the role of the Greek hero in the film. The name of the sailing boat refers to the sorceress Circe , who seduces Odysseus, just as Elsa casts Michael under her spell. As a self- confessed leftist , Welles established another autobiographical reference by expressing himself critical of corruption and the privileged class as Michael. A scene on the beach in Acapulco served him above all, when Michael told Grisby, Bannister and Elsa a parable in which sharks tore each other apart in a blind bloodlust. Welles also attempted to ridicule the United States' judicial system by deliberately staging the scenes in the courtroom as a farce .

Furthermore, the film is one of the first to draw attention to the fact that after the Second World War there was a nuclear danger and thus the self-destruction of mankind, which intensifies the nightmarish mood of the film.

Visual style

Compared to other examples of film noir, in addition to the original locations in San Francisco and Acapulco, the many close-ups and bizarre camera angles that make certain characters appear mysterious and dangerous and also reinforce the feeling of paranoia stand out in The Lady of Shanghai . This is particularly evident in the extreme close-ups of the sweating Grisby, whose supposed fear of a nuclear attack escalates into apparent madness. When Grisby Michael offers to "kill" him, the camera stands high above them, revealing a cliff that illustrates the profound and ominous nature of the proposal. Rita Hayworth, who was a trained dancer, was staged by Welles in a strikingly static manner as Elsa , in contrast to Gilda or her film musicals. She can hardly be seen in motion, which underlines the mysterious passivity of her figure.

The Steinhart Aquarium in Golden Gate Park , another location for the film

In the aquarium, Elsa and Michael walk in front of the panes of the water tanks, which show sharks, moray eels and other monstrous-looking sea creatures through rear projection in oversized size. Elsa and Michael are lit from behind until at the end of the scene, when they kiss and Michael finally becomes Elsa's "prey", only their silhouettes can be seen.

Welles borrowed the scenes in the amusement park with oblique camera angles and theatrical backdrops from the German expressionist films of the 1920s to illustrate the nightmarish course of the plot. While the film began like a fairy tale in a park with a carriage in which Michael Elsa still calls Princess Rosalinde, it ends in an abstract room full of mirrors, in which the supposed princess reveals her true face, that of the femme fatale. The scene in the cabinet of mirrors resembles a surreal world in which the faces of Elsa, Michael and Arthur Bannister are reflected in manifold ways like in a kaleidoscope .

Glass, like the lens of Grisby's telescope, the panes in the aquarium or the mirrors in the amusement park, has an important function in that it first shows the viewer Elsa as a seductive siren on the rocks , then gives an insight into her “predatory fish-like” character and later allows her true, dangerous self reflects. Welles also takes up this stylistic device in another scene: In his study the judge plays chess with himself, which is shown to the viewer mirrored in the window pane, through which one can also see the roofs of San Francisco. Welles thus sets the scene for the judge, as he judges the fate of his city like a god and divides the people with the pawns into white good citizens and black bad citizens.

The depth of field typical of Welles and Citizen Kane , which shows the background just as sharply as the people and objects in the foreground, changes in The Lady of Shanghai with a conventional, superficial focus, as does the sharpness and soft focus of individual faces. To what extent the re-shooting on Harry Cohn's orders was responsible for these differences cannot be determined. This also applies to the sometimes confusing montage , in which recordings at the original locations are often mixed with rear projections in the studio.

Pauline Kael wrote in the 1960s that no other director before Welles had dramatized film techniques in such a way. In The Lady of Shanghai it is mainly jump cuts and the depth of field, but also the almost Brechtian distancing effect of the stylized representations and the doubling of the film frame in the cabinet of mirrors and in the Chinese theater through the stage, which should make it clear to the audience that this is about an artistic film and not real life.

More stylistic devices

Michael O'Hara narrates the plot, typical for a film noir, as a flashback in the voice-over , whereby his suspicion is expressed in the first sentence that Elsa will bring him harm, but that he cannot or can not escape her. wants: "Once I get lost in a nonsensical idea, there is hardly anything that can dissuade me from it again." ("When I start to make a fool of myself, there's very little that can stop me.") A narrative style that anticipates or suggests events suggests Michael's dark sense of fatalism and is at the same time characterized by melodramatic nostalgia. Elsa's clothing by Columbia's chief designer Jean Louis is another stylistic device that expresses her changing intentions during the film with alternating black and white contrasts. At the beginning of the film, she is dressed in innocent white, the effect of which is enhanced by her platinum blonde hair color and her statement that she is Belarusian , and makes her a shining figure in the dark park, which Michael magically attracts like a firefly . In the end, she is dressed all in black like a black widow that she literally becomes when she shoots her husband.

reception

Publication and aftermath

The world premiere of the film took place on December 24, 1947, but not in the United States , but in France . Convinced that the film would not be well received by American audiences because of the complicated plot and because of Hayworth's image change, Harry Cohn kept the film under lock and key for more than a year. It wasn't until June 9, 1948 that The Lady of Shanghai was released in US cinemas. In Germany , the film was first shown on the screen on February 24, 1950. On September 3, 1966, the ARD broadcast it for the first time on German television. It was released on DVD in 2003.

Even before it was released, it was rumored in Hollywood that the film would develop into a financial fiasco and that the plot with its characters would make no sense. Since the budget was already very high due to the shooting on the original locations and Welles' lavish film sets, the costs rose from the expensive post-production from 1.25 million to the then very large sum of two million dollars. However, the film only grossed just under $ 1.5 million, which turned out to be a big flop.

The critics of the time, who did not know that the film had been severely cut by Columbia, mainly criticized the confusing, illogical plot. The visual effects and individual performances, such as that of Everett Sloane, have been praised at times. Faced with the film's financial failure, Welles left Hollywood to seek fortune as a filmmaker in Europe . “My friends avoided me,” Welles said later. “Whenever [the movie] came up, people would try to change the subject quickly out of consideration for my feelings. At that time it was only considered a good film in Europe. ”The French director François Truffaut stated that“ The only raison d'être for The Lady of Shanghai was the cinema itself ”, thus anticipating later interpretations of the film as a critical and self-deprecating reflection of Hollywood films .

Over the years, the film continued to be referred to as one of Welles' biggest failures in the United States. Since Rita Hayworth and Orson Welles were already separated during the shoot and the couple divorced at the end of 1948, which the press dubbed "the beauty and the brain", it was often claimed With the film, which presents Hayworth as an ice-cold femme fatale, Welles wanted to take intellectual revenge on his wife and therefore wanted to overthrow her from the throne as the “goddess of love”. This is how the German film critic Adolf Heinzlmeier judged : “All the more devastating is the blow that Orson Welles inflicts on her in The Lady from Shanghai (1946). Rita Hayworth, in America's consciousness the ideal woman and lover, is 'exposed' as a scheming, thoroughly evil sex monster; in the case of Barbara Stanwyck or Joan Crawford, no one would have been surprised. For Rita, the darling of the nation, this act amounted to an execution. Welles demonizes the myth of the American woman in the form of Rita Hayworth. ”Welles wanted to help Hayworth break free from the deadlocked image of the glamor icon in order to be taken seriously by the critics as a serious actress.

The Lady of Shanghai is now considered a masterpiece of film noir, which has made its way into film history due to its artistic qualities and has been quoted many times in other films such as Woody Allen's Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993) with its legendary scene in the mirror cabinet .

Reviews

The contemporary reviews were mixed. Especially the script was not convincing. Bosley Crowther of the New York Times wrote at the time that The Lady of Shanghai could have been an "excellent" melodrama. Some of the dramatic presentations were quite successful. Everett Sloane is "electrifying in his cunning and malevolence as a lawyer and husband", and Glenn Anders is downright "disturbing as an indefinable lunatic". Rita Hayworth is also "perfectly suited to the task of looking gorgeous and acting nebulous". According to Crowther, the problem lies with Orson Welles, who should have hired someone other than himself as a screenwriter in order to have a suitable script available. In addition, Welles has no qualities as a romantic hero. By giving his character "a poetic note" and speaking with an Irish accent that is "terribly artificial", "he is making ridiculous not only of himself but also of the film".

The industry journal Variety complained in April 1948 that the script was "word-heavy and full of holes", "which require a tight narrative and more movement". The effects are “good in themselves”, but distract from the criminal act. Hayworth has "not much more to do than look beautiful". Among the actors, Everett Sloane stands out, who has provided "a credible interpretation of a crippled defense attorney." Time was more positive . The film is "a piece of dexterous magic by Orson Welles". The film's “big trick” was to “avoid a direct collision of at least six storylines and turn it into a smooth six-lane crime thriller”. Welles implemented this trick successfully, even if “not all of his magic works”.

In retrospect, The Lady of Shanghai was "a kind of broken mirror" for Kim Newman . The result was "a film of ingenious shards that will never be brought together into something unique". Chicago Reader's David Kehr called it "the strangest big movie ever made". The US American TV Guide marveled at the “most amazing visual effect” in the scene in the cabinet of mirrors, which marks the climax of the film and represents “a marvel of surrealistic equipment”. Linda Rasmussen of the All Movie Guide noted that Orson Welles was "at times excessive in his use of visual tricks and techniques," which occasionally resulted in the "act of optical brilliance being sacrificed." Nevertheless, he finally managed to "produce a stunning, demanding film". Rita Hayworth also show "one of her best achievements as a deceitful seductress". She is "uncompromising and cynical".

The British film magazine Empire came to the conclusion that the original 155-minute version could have been “a masterpiece”, while the shortened version “missed the mark”. But despite its dismembered condition and Welles' Irish accent, reminiscent of John Wayne in The Winner , there is "still a lot to like about the dark film noir". The plot of the film is "nicely nested, the representations amusing and colorful, the mood unceasingly uncanny". The final scene in the mirror cabinet is still "an outro classic". The Guardian gave the film five out of five stars and certified it "an incredible brilliance". The plot is sometimes opaque and confusing due to the cuts made by the studio, but the “sheer swing and design” of the film still made it “something wonderful”.

The lexicon of international films described The Lady of Shanghai as "a film with a masterful buildup of tense moods and whose opaque crime story only serves as a pretext". The lexicon also attested the film a "biting cynicism" with which it "criticizes the American fetishes", but in the end "[gets stuck in fatalism]". Reclam's classic film saw "a grotesque Danse macabre , a satire on the American way of life, whether it is the jury system or the power of money that destroys all human ties". For the film magazine Cinema it was a classic, which despite its abbreviations could convince "with optical brilliance, the legendary showdown in the cabinet of mirrors and a grotesque game with stereotypes of the genre". The viewer is offered "[v] destructive pictorial poetry with an evil finale".

German version

The German dubbed version was created in 1949 by Ultra Film Synchron GmbH Munich based on the dialog book by Isolde Lange-Frohloff . The synchronous direction was taken over by Josef Wolf . In the original, Michael gives Elsa the nickname Rosalie while they ride a carriage through New York's Central Park. In the German version, the name was changed to Rosalinde. Any reference to Michael's role in the Spanish Civil War has also been removed.

role actor Voice actor
Elsa "Rosalie" Bannister Rita Hayworth Till Klockow
Michael O'Hara Orson Welles Peter Pasetti
Arthur Bannister Everett Sloane Richard Münch
George Grisby Glenn Anders Bum Kruger
Sidney Broome Ted de Corsia Wolfgang Eichberger
Judge Erskine Sanford Otto Wernicke
"Goldie" goldfish Gus Schilling Anton Reimer
District Attorney Galloway Carl Frank Harald Wolff

literature

Literary source:

Secondary literature:

  • Alex Ballinger, Danny Graydon: The Rough Guide to Film Noir . Rough Guides, 2007, 312 pp., ISBN 1-843-53474-6 .
  • Peter Bogdanovich : This Is Orson Welles . Da Capo Press, 1998, p. 592, ISBN 0-306-80834-X .
  • Jennifer Fay, Justus Nieland: Film Noir. Hard-Boiled Modernity and the Cultures of Globalization . Routledge, 2009, 304 pp., ISBN 0-415-45813-7 .
  • Paul Duncan, Jürgen Müller (Eds.): Film Noir, 100 All-Time Favorites . Taschen, Cologne 2014, ISBN 978-3-8365-4353-8 , pp. 240–245.
  • Jürgen Müller, Jörn Hetebrügge: Out of focus - tilting, blurring and uncertainty in Orson Welles' "The Lady from Shanghai" . In: Paul Duncan, Jürgen Müller (Eds.): Film Noir, 100 All-Time Favorites . Taschen, Cologne 2014, ISBN 978-3-8365-4353-8 , pp. 20–35.
  • Randy Rasmussen: Orson Welles. Six Films Analyzed, Scene by Scene . McFarland & Company, 2006, 276 pp., ISBN 0-786-42603-9 .
  • Alain Silver, James Ursini: Film Noir Reader 2 . Limelight Editions, 2004, 348 pp., ISBN 0-879-10280-2 .

Web links

Commons : The Lady of Shanghai  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files
Wikiquote: The Lady of Shanghai  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bert Rebhandl : Orson Welles. Genius in the maze . Zsolnay, Vienna 2005, pp. 89–90.
  2. ↑ cf. The Essentials on tcm.com
  3. ↑ cf. Notes on tcm.com
  4. ^ A b c Gene Ringgold: The Films of Rita Hayworth . Citadel Press, Secaucus 1974, pp. 169-172.
  5. ↑ a b c d Heinz-Jürgen Köhler: The Lady of Shanghai . In: Films of the 40s . Jürgen Müller (Ed.), Taschen, 2005, pp. 397-401.
  6. ↑ a b c d e f John Kobal: Rita Hayworth. The Time, The Place and the Woman . WW Norton, New York 1977, pp. 167-170.
  7. ^ Caren Roberts-Frenzel: Rita Hayworth. A Photographic Retrospective . Abrams, New York 2001, p. 131.
  8. ^ The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures Produced in the United States. Feature Films 1941-1950 . University of California Press, 1999, p. 1312.
  9. ^ Peter Noble: The Fabulous Orson Welles . Hutchinson, 1956, p. 168.
  10. ^ Louis D. Giannetti: Masters of the American Cinema . Prentice-Hall, 1981, p. 276.
  11. ↑ Frank Brady: Citizen Welles. A Biography of Orson Welles . Scribner, 1989, p. 402.
  12. ↑ “an experiment in what not to do” quoted. based on Robert Ottoson: A Reference Guide to the American Film Noir, 1940-1958 . Scarecrow Press, 1981, p. 101.
  13. ↑ "a wild jump into space by Donald Duck" quoted. based on Peter Bogdanovich : This Is Orson Welles . Da Capo Press, 1998, p. 195.
  14. ↑ a b c Sabine Reichel: Bad Girls. Hollywood's evil beauties . Heyne Verlag GmbH, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-453-09402-6 , pp. 40-42.
  15. ↑ Arienne L. McLean: Being Rita Hayworth. Labor, Identity to Hollywood Stardom . Rutgers University Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8135-3388-0 , p. 150.
  16. ↑ Randy Rasmussen: Orson Welles. Six Films Analyzed, Scene by Scene . McFarland & Company, 2006, p. 134.
  17. ↑ a b c d Chris Justice: The Lady from Shanghai . In: Senses of Cinema ( Memento of November 8, 2012 in the Internet Archive ).
  18. ↑ Arienne L. McLean: Being Rita Hayworth. Labor, Identity to Hollywood Stardom . Rutgers University Press, 2004, p. 154.
  19. ↑ JP Telotte: Voices in the Dark. The Narrative Patterns of Film Noir . University of Illinois Press, 1989, p. 72.
  20. ^ Vlada Petrić, Ingmar Bergman : Film & Dreams. An Approach to Bergman . Redgrave Publishing Company, 1981, p. 35.
  21. ↑ Tom Conley: The Lady from Shanghai on filmreference.com
  22. ^ John Aquino: Film in the Language Arts Class . National Education Association, 1977, p. 34.
  23. ↑ Randy Rasmussen: Orson Welles. Six Films Analyzed, Scene by Scene . McFarland & Company, 2006, p. 104.
  24. ^ Pauline Kael : Kiss Kiss Bang Bang . Bantam Books, 1969, p. 72.
  25. ^ Clinton Heylin: Despite the System. Orson Welles Versus the Hollywood Studios . Chicago Review Press, 2005, p. 193.
  26. ^ David Thomson : Rosebud. The Story of Orson Welles . Abacus, London 2005, p. 280.
  27. ↑ “Friends avoided me. Whenever it was mentioned, people would clear their throats and change the subject very quickly out of consideration for my feelings. I only found out that it was considered a good picture when I got to Europe. ” Quoted from Peter Bogdanovich: This Is Orson Welles . Da Capo Press, 1998, p. 190.
  28. ↑ “La seule raison d'être de The Lady from Shanghai , c'est… le cinéma lui-même.” François Truffaut : Le plaisir des yeux. Critics on the cinema . Cahiers du Cinema, Editions de l'Étoile, 2000, ISBN 2-866-42276-7 , p. 170.
  29. ^ Adolf Heinzlmeier : Rita Hayworth - Cover Girl. In: The Immortals of Cinema. The glamor and myth of the stars of the 40s and 50s . Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main 1980, pp. 93–94.
  30. ^ Bernard F. Dick: The Merchant Prince of Poverty Row. Harry Cohn of Columbia Pictures . University Press of Kentucky, 1993, p. 139.
  31. ↑ “ The Lady From Shanghai […] could have been a terrific piece of melodramatic romance. [...] Everett Sloane is electrified with sharpness and malignance as the lawyer and husband, and Glenn Anders is exquisitely disturbing as the indefinite lunatic. Even Rita Hayworth […] is entirely adequate to the requirement of looking ravishing and acting vague. […] As producer of the picture, Mr. Welles might better have fired himself - as author, that is - and hired somebody to give Mr. Welles, director, a better script. [...] Mr. Welles simply hasn't the capacity to cut a romantic swath. And when he adorns his characterization with a poetic air and an Irish brogue, which is painfully artificial, he makes himself - and the film - ridiculous. " Bosley Crowther : Orson Welles Production, 'The Lady From Shanghai,' Bows at Loew's Criterion . In: The New York Times , June 10, 1948.
  32. ↑ "script is wordy and full of holes Which need the plug of taut storytelling and more forthright action. [...] effects, while good on their own, are distracting to the murder plot. [...] Hayworth isn't called on to do much more than look beautiful. Best break for players goes to Everett Sloane, and he gives a credible interpretation of the crippled criminal attorney. " William Brogdon: The Lady from Shanghai . In: Variety , April 14, 1948.
  33. ↑ “ The Lady from Shanghai is a piece of sleight of hand by Orson Welles. The big trick in this picture was to divert a head-on collision of at least six plots, and make of it a smooth-flowing, six-lane whodunit. Orson brings the trick off. […] The film sometimes lies limp under such feeble abracadabra, but sometimes it stands on end at a weird glimpse of real black magic. [...] But not all of his magic works. " See Cinema: The New Pictures, Jun. 7, 1948 ( February 1, 2011 memento on the Internet Archive ). In: Time , June 7, 1948.
  34. ↑ Kim Newman : The Lady of Shanghai . In: 1001 films. The best films of all time . Steven Jay Schneider (Ed.), 2nd edition, Edition Olms AG, Zurich 2004, p. 240.
  35. ↑ "The weirdest great movie ever made." David Kehr: The Lady from Shanghai . In: Chicago Reader .
  36. ↑ "The most amazing visual effect is the climactic Crazy House / Hall of Mirrors location, which is a wonder of surrealistic set design." See tvguide.com
  37. ↑ “Orson Welles […] is sometimes self-indulgent in his use of visual tricks and techniques, which at times sacrifice plot for visual brilliance, but he pulls it together in the end to produce a stunning, difficult film. Rita Hayworth gives one of her best performances as the deceptive, seductive temptress, hard-edged and cynical. " Linda Rasmussen, cf. omovie.com
  38. ↑ “The original 155-minute version may have been a masterpiece, but this truncated noir narrowly misses the mark. The plot's pleasingly convoluted, the performances amusingly varied, the mood sinisterly sustained. [...] Even in its chopped-up form and with Welles 'Irish accent set to' John Wayne-in-The-Quiet Man ', there's still plenty to like about Welles' moody noir flick. The final scene remains a classic outro. " David Parkinson: The Lady From Shanghai Review . In: Empire , July 16, 2014.
  39. ↑ “There's such an outrageous brilliance […]. There are some opaque plot tangles, perhaps due to 60 minutes being cut from Welles's original version by the studio, but the sheer brio and style make it a thing of wonder. " Peter Bradshaw: The Lady from Shanghai review - outrageous and dreamlike . In: The Guardian , July 24, 2014.
  40. ↑ The Lady of Shanghai. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed September 24, 2018 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  41. ↑ cf. cinema.de
  42. ↑ cf. synchrondatenbank.de ( Memento from September 7, 2016 in the Internet Archive )