The Lady from Shanghai Movie Review

Orson Welles directs a fairly stereotypical 1940s tale of noir, with himself in the lead role as a penniless Irish sailor who gets caught up in a love affair with a rich man's wife (Rita Hayworth, Welles' real-life wife at the time) and a plot to fake the murder of the man's law firm partner. Convoluted and roughly edited, Welles' signature photography is stamped all over the film, but his usual savvy sense of plot and character development is lacking. The film unfortunately never wholly comes together, most notably during one of the most tepid, poorly-constructed courtroom sequences on film. The ending, however, a shootout in a hall of mirrors, is unforgettable and has since been widely copied.