The Lady from Shanghai
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Orson Welles directed and starred in this 1947 Film Noir classic as Irishman Micheal O'Hara, who meets the beautiful Elsa, the titular Lady, after saving her from muggers in Central Park. She offers him a job aboard her yacht, but things soon take a turn for the worse when Micheal gets involved in a plot to help a man fake his death.
The camera is the star in this stylish film noir. The Lady from Shanghai is renowned for its stunning set pieces, the "Aquarium" scene, "Hall of Mirrors" climax, baroque cinematography and convoluted plot.
Director Orson Welles had burst on the scene with Citizen Kane in 1941 and The Magnificent Ambersons in 1942, but had increasingly become seen as difficult to work with by the studios. As a result, Welles spent most of his career outside the studio sphere. The Lady From Shanghai marked one of his last films under a major studio (Columbia) with Welles and the executives frequently clashing over the budget, final editing of the film and the release date.
The Lady from Shanghai was added to the National Film Registry in 2018.
- Death Faked for You: It doesn't work.
- Faking the Dead: Subverted -- he certainly succeeds on the "dead" end of things, but the "fake" is entirely lacking.
- Femme Fatale: Elsa
- Film Noir
- Film of the Book: Actually based on the novel If I Die Before I Wake by Sherwood King.
- Frame-Up
- Hall of Mirrors: Trope Codifier, if not the downright trope maker.
- Mutual Kill: Elsa and her husband shoot each other.
- Protagonist Title Fallacy: Elsa is not the main character, Micheal is.
- Ugly Guy, Hot Wife
- Unspoken Plan Guarantee: The audience knows how they are going to try to fake Grisby's death. Even though it's not the whole story, it doesn't go quite as planned.
- Your Cheating Heart