Watched: 06/29/2020
Format: Noir Alley on TCM
Viewing: third
Decade: 1940's
Director: Orson Welles
The backstory to the making of
The Lady From Shanghai (1947) is famous, gossipy Hollywood lore. Hayworth starred alongside soon-to-be-ex husband and director, Orson Welles, transformed from the red-coiffed icon of
Gilda into a platinum blonde and a femme fatale.
A bit like
The Big Sleep, a lot of people talk about how this movie is confusing, but I didn't find it particularly so. While I cop to the fact that The Lady from Shanghai isn't a pat story and that the plot wanders - it all holds together within each character's motivation, and I don't really get the complaints. From Muller's shownotes, I'll give the credit for cohesive storytelling not to Welles, but to his editor Viola Lawrence, who took Welles' loose footage and worked with him to get it into some sort of story, and got it cut to a standard-length picture when Welles left the movie.