I turned 31 yesterday. Which means I am six years older than Orson Welles was when he made the greatest movie ever made. He is one of my most admired people, probably my favorite raconteur and definitely one of my favorite misunderstood rebels. He is also the person I'm most jealous of. And my lifelong love-hate relationship with Orson Welles has not removed him from the many pedestals I've put him on. Say what you want about him, and God knows everybody has, but you have to, if nothing else, admire his tenacity. Hollywood didn't know what to do with its most prominent rebel genius, and so they fought him. And he fought back. Time and again, movie after movie. The Lady From Shanghai (1947) was no exception.
Based on the novel ‘If I Die Before I Wake’ by Sherwood King, the plot of The Lady From Shanghai is almost as shambolic as the chaos that went on behind the scenes. Let's see, Irish seaman Michael O'Hara, played by Welles, is hired by Elsa Bannister (Welles' then-wife Rita Hayworth) to work for her and her husband Arthur (Everett Sloane) on their yacht. He then meets the Bannisters' friend George Grisby (Glenn Anders) and soon realizes that there is something sinister lurking under the blistering San Francisco sun. Backstabbing, triple crossings, the works… They’re all here.
Now, I know what you're thinking. Did Wisconsin-born Welles really try and do an Irish accent? Yes, he did. Key word there, try. But once you can get past that, you'll see there is a great performance underneath. Michael O'Hara might not necessarily be his best performance - Harry Lime, maybe? - but it is one of the most interesting. Michael O'Hara is a typical noir fallen hero. He brought it all on himself. Well, not all of it, but enough of it to qualify him for the plantheon of noir fallen heroes alongside Walter Neff, Mark Dixon and Jeff Bailey. You see, O'Hara's infatuation with Elsa led to his downfall. She seduced him, she brought him into her life and onto her yacht, and he went along with it. Despite his better judgement.
'Personally, I don't like a girlfriend to have a husband. If she'll fool a husband, I figure she'll fool me.' Michael O’Hara
The Bannisters and George Grisby certainly make for one fine trio. By fine, I mean, deeply dysfuntional and duplicitous. Who's who and what do they want? And why? Well, for one, they want Michael O'Hara to be the fall guy. Something's happening and O'Hara is going down for it. Or is he? You see, George convinces him that he can't go down for murder if there is no body. But alas, this is noir. There's a body everywhere. You can guess the rest.
'When I start out to make a fool of myself, there's very little can stop me.' Michael O’Hara
It always surprises me how, perhaps more than any other noir hero, Michael O'Hara willingly went along with everything. He knew what his shortcomings were, he knew how foolish and gullible he could be and he did very little to stop himself. His carelessness stood in his way and his smugness led to an embroilment that never should have happened. Because, contrary to his own belief, he was actually pretty smart. But smart doesn't cut it in this world...
Now, does that sounds like any typical noir? Well, sure. The Lady From Shanghai isn't particularly ground-beaking, if immensely enjoyable. But it is special. It is directed like a noir directed by Welles. In other words, you can tell it's a Welles picture, despite Harry 'Hollywood's Most Hated Man' Cohn's best efforts to ruin everything (too much to go into here, look it up on IMDb). The camera angles, the general atmosphere, the acting, that mirror scene, oh that mirror scene... everything screams Orson Welles. And I always love seeing that. I love seeing his touch in a movie. I like the grandness of his style. I like the grandness of Orson Welles. He has a permanent spot at the table at my imaginary dinner party with Hollywood's greatest.
We bid farewell to Michael O'Hara and The Lady From Shanghai. Our next loser is a crooked cop who turns on the ones who trust him the most. The actor is Steve Cochran, the movie is Private Hell 36 (1954) and the loser... is Cal Bruner.
See you on the sunny side of the street.
Like what you see? Consider helping a blogger out by buying me a coffee here: https://buymeacoffee.com/saintmartiZ
Loving this whole series. Please keep it up.
He was an enormous talent. When your first film is such a classic it’s hard to duplicate. The studio really
Put the screws to “ The magnificent Ambersons”. I loved “ the lady from Shanghai “. Never get tired of the mirror sequence. What other great films he could have made if he wasn’t confined to the studio.