The Lady from Shanghai
1947
****
Director: Orson Welles
Cast: Rita Hayworth, Orson Welles, Everett Sloane, Glenn Anders, Ted de Corsia, Erskine Sanford, Gus Schilling, Carl Frank, Louis Merrill, Evelyn Ellis
Irish sailor Michael O'Hara is hired to work on the yacht of a wealthy but disabled attorney and his alluringly beautiful wife. The simple assignment leads to dark secrets, double-crosses, and murder. This conventional but entertaining film noir is based on Raymond Sherwood King's 1938 novel If I Die Before I Wake. The story takes its sweet time to get going, but the second half is terrific, and the climactic scene in the hall of mirrors is iconic. Orson Welles, who dons the least convincing Irish accent of all time, didn't take a directing credit after the studio butchered the film.
