The Lady from Shanghai
by Orson Welles
(Click here)
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD details
Actor: Everett Sloane, Glenn Anders, Orson Welles, Rita Hayworth, Ted de CorsiaDirector: Orson Welles
Brand: HAYWORTH,RITA
DVD: Region Code 99
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Portuguese (Subtitled); Georgian (Subtitled); Chinese (Subtitled); Thai (Subtitled); Portuguese (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; Spanish (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
Picture Format: Pan & Scan, 1.33:1
Running Time: 87 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2000-10-03
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Sony Pictures
DVD Reviews of The Lady from Shanghai
DVD Review: For Film Buffs Only
Summary: 3 Stars
I thought that a film starring Orson Wells and Rita Hayworth would have to be enjoyable. The first half was good and from there on the plot got so convuluted that I couldn't follow it and eventually lost interest. It's still interesting to see the great Orson Welles--he is a fascinating actor. And Rita Hayworth was one of the most gorgeous and glamourous actresses of her time, if not all time. Still one needs a little more to make a good film. Many folks are so impressed by Welles' reputation that they are prepared to like anything he did. And if you weren't sure, then there's an extra where Peter Bogdonavich tells you how great it was!
For me, it failed to hold my interest to the end. If the plot had been cleaned up a bit, I might have stuck with it.
One interesting thing to me was that, although the Hayworth character was named "Elsa", the Welles' character preferrd to call her "Rosalie." This reminded me of "Rosebud" in Citizen Kane. Perhpas Welles had some secret fondness/obsession with roses...?
DVD Review: Stinks. Incomprehensible mess. Welles starts his steep slide
Summary: 1 Stars
Far too many of Welles's later films are called masterpieces now. Back when I was a young MFA candidate, there were scores of articles written about how Welles had declined after Kane. Then he died. Suddenly all those wretched pictures became masterpieces.
The camera work in this film is striking at times. But as a story, this film is incomprehensible and impossible to follow. As is the case so often after Kane, Welles is so impressed with himself that he dazzles us with irrelevance; even after they cut almost an hour out of this, much of the dialogue is puzzling. It doesn't help the story. And the film is dramatically uneven: Loud and forceful must be balanced with soft and neutral or the entirety is just noise. This film, like almost all the post-Kane films, is mostly just pointless roaring. Welles's Irish brogue is equally unconvincing, but that isn't the worst thing in this film.
Welles's screen writing is almost always subpar. He was never capable of writing something that advanced from scene to scene logically and with the proper pacing. This film, like The Trial and Touch of Evil (ugh!) has long scenes with lots of bewildering dialogue that doesn't inform us or work to the advantage of the storytelling. His later movies fail largely due to this flaw: the storytelling is downright bad. (Citizen Kane disguises this shortcoming to some degree because the story is told in flashbacks).
Another reason Citizen Kane worked was because Welles was willing to work with other people and let them contribute. This film is a good example of how Welles tried to do everything, and he didn't do everything nearly well enough, and the film falls apart. Another big reason why Welles never made another good film after Kane is because he was a royal pain in the neck to work with. He was abusive, critical, overbearing, and generally just enormously difficult as well. It's a miracle he was hired so often as an actor, it really is.
We all - myself included - want Orson Welles to have been a great director. We want all of his later work to be as good as Kane. We want to think of him in later years as the jolly, bearded sage of American cinema. But we're deluding ourselves - the work badly fails, and he is found wanting. After Kane, Welles continually tried to get back to who he once was, and couldn't. He eventually alienated so many people that he became a carnival sideshow, doing all manner of tawdry commercials he could do to finance his later films. All of which, regrettably, are either poor or unfinished.
Good Art has to work; it has to hold together, and has to accomplish what it attempts. Welles's later work does none of that - it fails miserably. Watching The Trial and Touch of Evil and this film and calling them good pictures is the equivalent of contemplating your navel I'm afraid... As one film professor said to me once, Welles's later films are "all over the place."
Welles was bold, had courage, was a maverick, and believed to his death that he put forth a unique and skillful vision. But all that isn't enough, the art still has to work. You can have all those qualities and never again make another picture worth a damn.
DVD Review: Wellesian Filmmaking at Its Most Delirious
Summary: 4 Stars
"The Lady from Shanghai" (1948) flaunts its cinematic iconoclasm from beginning to end. Defying Hollywood tradition, director-star Orson Welles creates a nightmarish charade. Since Orson's Irish sailor remains as unconvincing as Rita Hayworth's femme fatale, "The Lady from Shanghai" can be viewed as a distorted, fun-house parody of classic film noir. Modern-day critics who bemoan the confused plotting and bizarre motivations never acknowledge the stream-of-consciousness framework established by Welles' tongue-in-cheek narration. There is a method to this chaos. Marked by abrupt shifts in tone and locale, the film becomes a never-ending series of jolts - culminating in the legendary "hall of mirrors" shootout. Despite studio interference, the wildly uneven "Lady from Shanghai" is delirious Wellesian bravura with an undercurrent of paranoia and despair.DVD Review: A signature Orson Welles movie
Summary: 4 Stars
Betrayed by the woman he loved
or just played for an all around fool by everybody;
the able bodied seaman played by Orson Welles
sets up several triple cross movies of the future.
The resulting plot is a no win psychological thriller
that delivers bad guy after bad guy until
the worm at the middle of the apple is revealed.
I liked it, but being used to this kind of plot
with Bogart movies of the 40's and early 50's,
the result wasn't as crushing this time around,
but this is a very good and well crafted movie.
DVD Review: How can anyone be so dumb? Oh yeah. He was trying to impress Rita Hayworth.
Summary: 3 Stars
I am always looking for a good San Francisco story (I watch and review San Francisco detective/noir movies), so was curious about The Lady from Shanghai. Yes, it has beautiful views of post-WWII San Francisco and even better views of Rita Hayworth, but the story itself is unsatisfying, maybe because so much of it ended up on the cutting-room floor but also perhaps because it's hard to understand the how the protagonist, Michael O'Hara, could be such a moron. Rita Hayworth could probably convince most straight men to do crazy things, but to agree to help someone fake his own death? When the alleged purpose of this fakery is so that the dead guy can collect his own life insurance? Shouldn't even the most hormone-distracted guy have seen that there might be more to this story and smelled a rat?
Still, the setup of a shark tank of nefarious characters is excellent. The unfaithful wife, the rich and brilliant but also old and crippled husband, and the resentful but dependent business partner are all beautifully drawn and sharply observed. Secrecy and duplicity are built into the characters, which serves the atmosphere of the film very well. All of this, however, raises expectations for some sort of clever d?nouement (a fancy way of saying "tying up the loose ends and providing a satisfactory resolution") that just does not happen. Were this movie being made today, one might suspect that The Lady from Shanghai: The Sequel was being readied for a 2010 Memorial Day weekend release.
Description of The Lady from Shanghai
A man falsely accused of murdering two others escapes from jail to find the real murderer.Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: UN
Release Date: 3-OCT-2000
Media Type: DVD
Legend has it that Orson Welles more or less conned studio boss Harry Cohn over the phone into making this movie by grabbing the title from a nearby paperback. In any case, The Lady from Shanghai is one of Welles's most fascinating works, a bizarre tale of an Irish sailor (Welles) who accompanies a beautiful woman (Rita Hayworth) and her handicapped husband (Everett Sloane) on a cruise and becomes involved in a murder plot. But never mind all that (the aforementioned legend also claims that Cohn offered a reward to anyone who could explain the plot to him). The film is really a dream of Welles's driving preoccupations on- and offscreen at the time: the elusiveness of identity, the mystique of things lost, and most of all the director's faltering marriage to Hayworth. In the tradition of male filmmakers who indirectly tell the story of their love affairs with leading ladies, Welles tells his own, photographing Hayworth as a deconstructed star, an obvious cinematic creation, thus reflecting, perhaps, a never-satisfied yearning that leads us back to the mystery of Citizen Kane. --Tom Keogh
General DVDs
DVD Video
- Action & Adventure
- African American Cinema
- Animation
- Anime & Manga
- Art House & International
- Classics
- Comedy
- Cult Movies
- Documentary
- Drama
- Educational
- Fitness & Yoga
- Gay & Lesbian
- Horror
- Kids & Family
- Military & War
- Music Video & Concerts
- Musicals & Performing Arts
- Mystery & Suspense
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Special Interests
- Sports
- Television
- Westerns
Bestsellers in General DVDs
Twilight (Two-Disc Special Edition)Universal; Release date: 2009-03-21; DVD
Best price: $15.88
Price in other shops:
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Full-Screen Edition)Release date: 2009-12-08; DVD
Best price: $9.99
Price in other shops:
Lost: The Complete Fifth SeasonRelease date: 2009-12-08; DVD
Best price: $36.99
Price in other shops:
The Proposal (Single Disc Widescreen)BUENA VISTA HOME VIDEO; Release date: 2009-10-13; DVD
Best price: $8.99
Price in other shops:
![Angels & Demons [Blu-ray] Image](/images/Angels-Demons-Blu-ray-B002O5M4SU-X.jpg)
Angels & Demons [Blu-ray]SONY PICTURES HOME ENT; Release date: 2009-11-24; DVD
Best price: $18.90
Price in other shops:
Four ChristmasesNEW LINE HOME VIDEO; Release date: 2009-11-24; DVD
Best price: $12.66
Price in other shops:
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Two-Disc Limited Special Edition + Digital Copy)Warner Brothers; Release date: 2009-12-08; DVD
Best price: $19.99
Price in other shops:
Julie & JuliaRelease date: 2009-12-08; DVD
Best price: $9.99
Price in other shops:
Angels & Demons (Single-Disc Theatrical Edition)SONY PICTURES HOME ENT; Release date: 2009-11-24; DVD
Best price: $11.99
Price in other shops:
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Widescreen Edition)Warner Brothers; Release date: 2009-12-08; DVD
Best price: $9.99
Price in other shops:
Similar DVDs, VHS Video, Audio CDs
Criss Cross (Universal Noir Collection)Universal Studios; Release date: 2004-07-06; DVD
Best price: $7.91
Price in other shops:
The Woman in the Window (MGM Film Noir)ROBINSON,EDWARD G; Release date: 2007-07-10; DVD
Best price: $7.16
Price in other shops:
The Loves of CarmenRelease date: 1999-12-21; DVD
Best price: $6.69
Price in other shops:
The Complete Mr. Arkadin (aka Confidential Report) - Criterion CollectionImage Entertainment; Release date: 2006-04-18; DVD
Best price: $34.00
Price in other shops:
The Big HeatFORD,GLENN; Release date: 2001-12-18; DVD
Best price: $13.13
Price in other shops:
In a Lonely PlaceBOGART,HUMPHREY; Release date: 2003-03-18; DVD
Best price: $7.99
Price in other shops:
Touch Of Evil (50th Anniversary Edition)Uni; Release date: 2008-10-07; DVD
Best price: $16.21
Price in other shops:
Affair in Trinidad (Black & White)Sony; Release date: 2008-09-23; DVD
Best price: $10.91
Price in other shops:
The Stranger (MGM Film Noir)ROBINSON,EDWARD G; Release date: 2007-07-10; DVD
Best price: $9.11
Price in other shops:
GildaHAYWORTH,RITA; Release date: 2000-11-07; DVD
Best price: $7.68
Price in other shops: