Do all rich women play games like this?

The Lady From Shanghai

These days I am watching more Hollywood classics then the current flicks, watching a movie from your parent’s era with them is a pleasure in itself and Alhamdulillah by the grace of God I am cherishing it. I had ordered some master prints from the Amazon, requested my friend Dr. Holt in Manchester to buy few DVD’s for me and thus wait for my postman to turn up with an envelope containing some new DVD every alternate month.

Recently Papa and I watched a 1948 film classic The Lady From Shanghai, my father who was very young then had seen this movie in toddling Pakistan in the year 1949 with his elder brother; he barely remembered the film but clearly remembered the controversy it was surrounded by. “The subject of great controversy and scandal upon its release The Lady From Shanghai shocked the audiences by presenting Rita Hayworth the Goddess of the then Hollywood Cinema with her flaming red hair cut short and dyed champagne blonde.” Most fans were none too pleased about it, they wanted Rita’s hair the way it was before! Rumour has it that the studio was besieged with letters requesting locks of the shorn tresses (which had been thrown away) and besides its famous hall of mirrors climax scene hailed as one of the greatest scenes in cinematic history and made this movie a vintage classic.

There were several conflicting stories as to how the idea for the movie came about. One story has Welles putting in a call to Columbia studio head Harry Cohn asking for $50,000, and in return, Welles would direct a picture for Columbia. Then when asked if he had a story in mind, Welles glanced over and saw the book “If I Die before I Wake“. There are quite a few more variations to this tale, therefore the entire truth is unclear, however what’s important is the end result, which is that Welles produced, directed, wrote and starred in an atmospheric film noir The Lady from Shanghai a film that is loosely based on the novel by Sherwood King, If I Die Before I Wake.

Welles plays rogue seaman Michael O’Hara, complete with Irish twang. After saving beautiful Elsa Bannister (Rita Hayworth) from thieves in Central Park, O’Hara is requested to serve on the yacht owned by Elsa’s husband, Arthur (Welles veteran Everett Sloane), an older man who needs special crutches in order to walk. A fiery passion lurks underneath the relationship between Michael and Elsa; in actuality, the marriage between Welles and Hayworth was ending at the time the film was shot. Enter George Grisby (the eerie-sounding Glenn Anders), one of Bannister’s associates and a man with a very special offer for O’Hara, luring him into a web of lies and murder. Although Welles claimed he made THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI just to finance other projects and the film does not show off his typical Wellesian flair, it still plays like a classic noir that draws the viewer in and never let’s go. The characters are complex and fascinating, and the tension runs high and hot as the truth behind all the lies starts to come out. I sure that Welles might have considered it to be a workmanlike, but this noir thriller is only as workmanlike as any Welles film can be.

One of the things significant about this film was that it marked the end of Rita’s marriage to Orson. They had been separated long before filming began, but they were on good terms during filming, calling each other “mama” and “papa”. But it appeared there would be no reconciliation. Rita said, “When I made The Lady from Shanghai we were separated but were still friends.” However, many say Rita was still in love with her estranged husband. Alas, just weeks after filming, she filed for divorce. Afterwards, Rita never spoke ill of him in the press. She told Louella Parson’s column, “I think if you loved a man enough to marry him, the least you can do, if you must part, is to say nothing against him.”

Harry Cohn, unhappy with the final product, was not anxious to release it. The film was shelved for over a year and finally debuted in April of 1948, making its way to Pakistani screens in the winters of December 1949 that turned to be a critical box-office debacle. It was such a flop that, Orson left directing Hollywood films until 1958, when his immortal classic, Touch of Evil was released. Nowadays The Lady from Shanghai is considered a classic. A must collection in the library of every film school around the globe, even though it was met with harsh criticism, over the years Rita always maintained it was a favourite of hers. She had absolute trust in Welles’ abilities as a filmmaker. She said, “See, Orson was trying something new with me, but Harry Cohn wanted “THE IMAGE“, The Image he was going to make me until I was ninety!”

Well I recommend this film to everyone reading this blog, as I strictly feel that The Lady From Shanghai is an exceptionally outstanding film. There are many aspects to love about it. To begin, for one thought Rita looked fashionable with short, blonde hair. Secondly, the cinematography is perfect for the portentous and gloomy plot. A film with excellence beyond par that must be seen to understand that even after almost 60 years down the lane nothing has changed, the society is still very much the same, when someone’s life ends then someone else’s new life begins, and if someone digs a pothole for someone else to fall into it, one should realize that (s) he may end up falling into it themselves only, well in short a story that dealt with the then “Do all rich women play games like this?” tagline.