Thursday, May 14, 2015

The Lady from Shanghai (1947)



Fascinated by a beautiful woman, a seaman joins a bizarre yachting cruise, and ends up mired in a complex murder plot.

Brilliant Noir fantasy with excellent Expressionist  photography and a tongue-in cheek twisted plot.

Halliwell**: "Absurd, unintelligible, plainly much cut and rearranged, this thriller was obviously left too much in Welles's hands and then just as unfairly taken out of them; but whole sequences of sheer brilliance remain, notably the final shoot-out in the hall of mirrors."

Maltin***: "The camera's the star of this offbeat thriller, with the cast incidental in murder mystery...The famous hall of mirrors climax is riveting."

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