The Lady from Shanghai
The Lady from Shanghai

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Michael O'Hara, against his better judgement, hires on as a crew member of Arthur Bannister's yacht, sailing to San Francisco. They pick up Grisby, Bannister's law partner, en route. Bannister has a wife, Elsa, who seems to like Michael much better than she likes her husband. After they dock in Sausalito, Michael goes along with Grisby's weird plan to fake his (Grisby's) murder so he can disappear untailed. He wants the $5000 Grisby has offered, so he can run off with Elsa. B... (Full plot summary below)

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Full Plot Details

Michael O'Hara, against his better judgement, hires on as a crew member of Arthur Bannister's yacht, sailing to San Francisco. They pick up Grisby, Bannister's law partner, en route. Bannister has a wife, Elsa, who seems to like Michael much better than she likes her husband. After they dock in Sausalito, Michael goes along with Grisby's weird plan to fake his (Grisby's) murder so he can disappear untailed. He wants the $5000 Grisby has offered, so he can run off with Elsa. But Grisby turns up actually murdered, and Michael gets blamed for it. Somebody set him up, but it is not clear who or how. Bannister (the actual murderer?) defends Michael in court.

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Movie Reviews

Combustible Celluloid - 10/10 by Jeffrey M. AndersonA brilliant movie, and everything in it is terrific.
Electric Sheep - 10/10 by Eithne FarryThe storyline is almost incidental to the disorientating inventiveness of The Lady from Shanghai.
Time Out - 10/10 by Tom HuddlestonA magnificent mess of switchbacks and revelations, climaxing with one of cinema's most outrageously inventive sequences.
Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC) - 10/10 by Ken HankeWhile there are better films in Orson Welles' oeuvre, I'm not sure any are more mesmerizing -- and I'm pretty sure that no film seems so emblematic of his career.
Parallax View - 9/10 by Richard T. Jameson... looms as the pivotal work of Welles's career, one of the greatest glories of the American cinema, and undoubtedly the trashiest masterpiece in motion picture history.
Boulder Weekly - 9/10 by Thomas DelapaLike most of Welles' Hollywood efforts, Shanghai was shanghaied by studio tampering ... but it also contains some of his greatest set pieces, topped by the delirious shootout in the funhouse hall of mirrors.
Village Voice - 9/10 by Calum MarshFor all the violations it suffered, The Lady From Shanghai seems strangely coherent in its extant form -- or rather, coherently incoherent, and in a way that seems quite deliberate.
Empire Magazine - 8/10 by Colin KennedyThough the plot is impossible to follow, there are many glimpses of Welles' signature atmosphere-making.
Time Out - 8/10 by Geoff AndrewComplex, courageous, and utterly compelling.
Time Out - 8/10 by Joshua RothkopfBe warned: This is a film that collects obsessives.

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The Lady from Shanghai