Orson Welles - The Lady from Shanghai (1947), 4/10

The story and performances of The Lady From Shanghai are foolish mess, yet it is an entertaining film. It isn’t particularly clever or brilliant, simply another screenplay based on a superior novel If I Die Before I Wake. Add in Orson Welles’ ridiculous accent and the goofy presentation almost becomes a parody, but it is hard to say how self-aware it really is. It clearly doesn’t take itself quite as seriously as something like Citizen Kane but it still clumsily falters too often to be great, even if it is a conscious film. Cinematography is what makes the experience worth its time. It is a decent film, but given the source material, artist, and the final product, it is quite simply a failure. The script is full of holes, needlessly verbose, and crudely constructed despite its elegant presentation. The story is not just disorienting, which could work well enough in isolation, but it becomes irritatingly predictable while simultaneously presenting nonsensical developments. If not for Welles and Hayworth’s acting and sporadic moments of cinematic provocation, the project would be a complete misfire. The mirror sequence and the conclusion of the film are its strongest moments, taking away the sting of its numerous missteps, pacifying what might be an entirely negative ordeal.