maybe i'll live so long that i'll forget her, maybe i'll die tryin.

Today's choice was The Lady From Shanghai by Orson Welles. Welles again played one of the main protagonist's, Michael O'Hara. The film begins with the meeting of Michael and Elsa Bannister, the wife of powerful attorney, Arthur Bannister, in Central Park. Through a few negotiations and meetings Michael comes aboard the Bannister yacht headed for San Francisco. At sea, Michael and Elsa begin a relationship, and Mr. Bannister's partner, Grisby, is picked up midway. Grisby becomes aware of Elsa and Michael's love affair and later offers Michael $5000 to help him stage his own murder in order to flee from his wife. The only catch is that Michael must sign his own confession to killing Grisby, and Grisby assures him that the letter won't matter since Michael can't be put in jail if the body isn't found and there is no evidence. Michael agrees with Grisby's odd offer given his own desire to go away with Elsa. On the night of the set up, something goes wrong and another man, Broome is shot, but on his dying breath he alerts Michael to the fact that Grisby is about to kill Mr. Bannister. The whole plan now gone awry becomes even more complicated as Michael soon finds out that Grisby was found dead too. The police find Michael's confession and he is taken to court. Michael is mentally tortured knowing that he didn't kill Michael and as the trial unfolds he makes a suicide attempt and escapes in the shuffle. Michael evades the police by ducking into a Chinese theatre, where the Lady from Shanghai, Mrs. Bannister herself, finds him. Michael explains to Elsa that all he must do is the find the gun - his gun - that supposedly killed Grisby, since it will have another man's prints on it. He paws his way into her purse and finds the gun, but is instantly knocked unconscious and dragged into a Fun House. Upon waking, it becomes clear to Michael that it Elsa and Grisby had originally planned to kill off Mr. Bannister and frame Michael for the crime, but it all went wrong when Broome was shot.

Needless to say the plot was a bit convoluted and I can't say it was executed as cleanly as it could have. It all came together in the last 15 minutes of the film or so and I didn't like Michael's internal explanation to the audience. I always love a surprise, but I can't say that this one blew me away. Also, the tone felt a bit strange and even a bit unintentionally goofy at times. Tough guys were never really tough; intense moments never amounted to much excitement for me and the characters were all a bit - off? Mr. Bannister was quite a queer fellow - good for the part, but too much of a character to fit in with the cast and plot. Grisby had a shrill voice that was completely incongruous to the noir register and made every one of his scenes come off a bit peculiar. Their close-ups really captured their oddities, but never seemed to really fit in with the rest of what the film was trying to accomplish. And then there was that weird moment before everyone gets on the yacht when Elsa dons a super short little captain's outfit and pleated skirt that seems a bit out of place. There was nothing very attractive or seductive about her character; in fact, she seemed a bit stiff. And the maid Bessie during the trip, was a little too high strung for her 5 second moments, but that's not really a fair criticism as it might have had more to do with the acting than the way it was shot. Another thing that got to me was that the Michael and Elsa's stolen moments were never romantic or heated or really that interesting. Interestingly enough, however, the two did have their real life divorce in 1948, a year after this film came out so perhaps that was part of it.

I did like Michael/Orson's narration though and that was the one element that most strongly made the film "noir" to me. Orson used mostly medium and long shots with a few punctuating close-ups, and the most notable and most famous scene in the film comes at the end in the Fun House/House of Mirrors. The Lady from Shanghai isn't a favourite, but I'm glad to have seen something that has been on my list for ages.