A film noir by Orson Welles. Michael O'Hara is hired as a crew member on Arthur Bannister's Yacht. They pick up Grisby, Bannister's law partner, on their way. However, Bannister's glamorous wife, Rosalie, seems to more interested in O'Hara than in her husband... Grisby hires O'Hara to fake his (Grisby's) murder, so that he can disappear; O'Hara wants the money to run away with Rosalie. However, Grisby ends up really dead...
A very nice movie by Orson Welles. The plot is as complex as is required for the genre, and Rita Hayworth's glamour is at its greatest. And the famous scene in the mirror room is unforgettable (The Bannisters and O'Hara shoot at each other in a room full of mirrors, so that you never know who is really getting shot...). It was featured in Woody Allen's The Manhattan Murder Mystery.
Orson Welles claims he found the idea for the movie when, in dire need for some movie, he phoned to an Hollywood executive, saying he found an interesting novel for his next movie... When asked what was the name of the novel, he looked at a bookshop beside the phone booth, and saw a book named The Lady from Shanghai...
And thanks to the IMDB, here are the cast and crew
- Rita Hayworth
- Elsa "Rosalie" Bannister
- Orson Welles
- Michael O'Hara
- Everett Sloane
- Arthur Bannister
- Glenn Anders
- George Grisby
- Ted de Corsia
- Sidney Broome
- Orson Welles
- director, producer, screenscript
- Heinz Roehmeld
- music
- Charles Lawton Jr.
- cinematography