The Lady from Shanghai (1947)
Jun 30, 2013 1:28:06 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Jun 30, 2013 1:28:06 GMT -5
Good morning to you all! To all those who survived the night, what a night it turned out to be. The Lady from Shanghai was hot!
So says Orson Welles in hard-boiled voiceover of femme fatale, Rita Hayworth. Columbia slashed over 65 minutes from Welles’s rough-cut, but it still proved box-office poison. But the now celebrated noir-thriller has deep-focus cinematography, serious smouldering from paradoxically newly ice-blonde Hayworth and a dazzlingly surreal funhouse/hall of mirrors finale echoed in Woody Allen’s Manhattan Murder Mystery. So is the lady from Shanghai still hot, and what does it all mean for the rest of the world in the twenty-first century? Well, perhaps, that it is the Far East, rather than the Middle East, Near East or West that we need to worry about!
The plot of the celebrated film noir, 'The Lady from Shanghai' (1947), is difficult to follow, as there are so many twists! Michael O'Hara (Orson Welles) meets the beautiful blonde Elsa (Rita Hayworth) as she rides a horse-drawn coach in Central Park. Three hooligans waylay the coach. Michael rescues Elsa and escorts her home. Michael reveals he is a seaman and learns Elsa and her husband, disabled criminal defense attorney Arthur Bannister (Everett Sloane), are newly arrived in New York City from Shanghai. They are on their way to San Francisco via the Panama Canal. Michael, attracted to Elsa despite misgivings, agrees to sign on as an able seaman aboard Bannister's yacht.
They are joined on the boat by Bannister's partner, George Grisby (Glenn Anders), who proposes that Michael "murder" him in a plot to fake his own death. He promises Michael $5,000 and explains that since he wouldn't really be dead and since there would be no corpse, Michael couldn't be convicted of murder (reflecting corpus delicti laws at the time.) Michael agrees, intending to use the money to run away with Elsa. Grisby has Michael sign a confession. On the eve of the crime, Sydney Broome, a private investigator who has been following Elsa on her husband's orders, confronts Grisby. Broome has learned of Grisby's plan to actually murder Bannister, frame Michael, and escape by pretending to have also been murdered. Grisby shoots Broome and leaves him for dead. Unaware of what has happened, Michael proceeds with the night's arrangement and sees Grisby off on a motorboat before shooting a gun into the air to draw attention to himself. Meanwhile, Broome, injured but alive, asks Elsa for help. He warns her that Grisby intends to kill her husband. Michael calls to inform Elsa but finds Broome on the other end of the line. Broome warns Michael that Grisby was setting him up. Michael rushes to Bannister's office in time to see Bannister is alive but that the police are removing Grisby's body from the premises. The police find evidence implicating Michael, including his confession, and take him away.
At trial, Bannister acts as Michael's attorney. He feels he can win the case if Michael pleads justifiable homicide. During the trial, Bannister learns of his wife's relationship with Michael. He ultimately takes pleasure in his suspicion that they will lose the case. Bannister also indicates that he knows the real killer's identity. Before the verdict, Michael escapes by feigning a suicide attempt. Elsa follows. She and Michael hide in a Chinatown theater. Elsa calls some Chinese friends to meet her. As Michael and Elsa wait and pretend to watch the show, Michael realizes that she had killed Grisby. Elsa's Chinese friends arrive and take Michael, unconscious, to an abandoned Fun House. When he wakes, he realizes that Grisby and Elsa had been planning to murder Bannister and frame him for the crime, but that Broome's involvement ruined the scheme and obliged Elsa to kill Grisby for her own protection. The film features a surreal climactic shootout in a hall of mirrors, the Magic Mirror Maze, in which Elsa is mortally wounded and Bannister is killed. Heartbroken, Michael leaves presuming that events which have unfolded since the trial will clear him of any crimes.
Wikipedia - The Lady from Shanghai
The profound question is whether we, like Michael, can really walk away from the lady from Shanghai? I suspect not. Nor can the United States of America (USA) walk away from EU concern over 'Der Spiegel' claim of US spying. Keep your friends close, Sydney Grew, and your enemies closer! As you from crimes would pardon'd be, let your indulgence set me free. 'The Observer' leads this weekend with some editorial comment about Egypt: a revolution on the brink of self-destruction. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of Egyptians are expected to take to the streets of Cairo and other major cities on Sunday to demand that President Mohamed Morsi , elected exactly one year ago, stand down and make way for some form of transitional government. Hundreds of thousands more, many though not all supporters of the ruling Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, are likely to mount counter-demonstrations, urging President Morsi to carry on regardless. Given the passions aroused on all sides, and the uncompromising, maximalist nature of the opposition's agenda, the scene is thus set for a physical confrontation of possibly epic proportions. Outbreaks of deadly violence have already been reported. Religious leaders have warned of "civil war". The fear is that these clashes may presage, and precipitate, a more general, anarchic breakdown. 'The Observer' observes the following:
In Fyodor Dostoyevsky's masterpiece, 'The Brothers Karamazov' (1879–1880), the Grand Inquisitor says "We are not with Thee (Jesus Christ), but with him (Satan), and that is our secret! For centuries have we abandoned Thee to follow him." For Satan, through compulsion, provided the tools to end all human suffering and for humanity to unite under the banner of the Church. The multitude then is guided through the Church by the few who are strong enough to take on the burden of freedom. The Inquisitor says that under him, all mankind will live and die happily in ignorance. Though he leads them only to "death and destruction," they will be happy along the way. The Inquisitor will be a self-martyr, spending his life to keep choice from humanity. He states that "Anyone who can appease a man's conscience can take his freedom away from him."
The Inquisitor advances this argument by explaining why Christ was wrong to reject each temptation by Satan. Christ should have turned stones into bread, as men will always follow those who will feed their bellies. The Inquisitor recalls how Christ rejected this saying, "Man cannot live on bread alone," and explains to Christ "Feed men, and then ask of them virtue! That's what they'll write on the banner they'll raise against Thee and with which they will destroy Thy temple. Where Thy temple stood will rise a new building; the terrible tower of Babel will be built again, and though, like the one of old, it will not be finished". Casting himself down from the temple to be caught by angels would cement his godhood in the minds of people, who would follow him forever. Rule over all the kingdoms of the Earth would ensure their salvation, the Grand Inquisitor claims.
Wikipedia - The Grand Inquisitor
I propose some toast: to the Lady from Shanghai, the Grand Inquisitor and all of you! Three cheers from kleines c and the gang (Sunday morning breakfast coffee)!
‘Some people can smell danger. Not me.’
So says Orson Welles in hard-boiled voiceover of femme fatale, Rita Hayworth. Columbia slashed over 65 minutes from Welles’s rough-cut, but it still proved box-office poison. But the now celebrated noir-thriller has deep-focus cinematography, serious smouldering from paradoxically newly ice-blonde Hayworth and a dazzlingly surreal funhouse/hall of mirrors finale echoed in Woody Allen’s Manhattan Murder Mystery. So is the lady from Shanghai still hot, and what does it all mean for the rest of the world in the twenty-first century? Well, perhaps, that it is the Far East, rather than the Middle East, Near East or West that we need to worry about!
The plot of the celebrated film noir, 'The Lady from Shanghai' (1947), is difficult to follow, as there are so many twists! Michael O'Hara (Orson Welles) meets the beautiful blonde Elsa (Rita Hayworth) as she rides a horse-drawn coach in Central Park. Three hooligans waylay the coach. Michael rescues Elsa and escorts her home. Michael reveals he is a seaman and learns Elsa and her husband, disabled criminal defense attorney Arthur Bannister (Everett Sloane), are newly arrived in New York City from Shanghai. They are on their way to San Francisco via the Panama Canal. Michael, attracted to Elsa despite misgivings, agrees to sign on as an able seaman aboard Bannister's yacht.
They are joined on the boat by Bannister's partner, George Grisby (Glenn Anders), who proposes that Michael "murder" him in a plot to fake his own death. He promises Michael $5,000 and explains that since he wouldn't really be dead and since there would be no corpse, Michael couldn't be convicted of murder (reflecting corpus delicti laws at the time.) Michael agrees, intending to use the money to run away with Elsa. Grisby has Michael sign a confession. On the eve of the crime, Sydney Broome, a private investigator who has been following Elsa on her husband's orders, confronts Grisby. Broome has learned of Grisby's plan to actually murder Bannister, frame Michael, and escape by pretending to have also been murdered. Grisby shoots Broome and leaves him for dead. Unaware of what has happened, Michael proceeds with the night's arrangement and sees Grisby off on a motorboat before shooting a gun into the air to draw attention to himself. Meanwhile, Broome, injured but alive, asks Elsa for help. He warns her that Grisby intends to kill her husband. Michael calls to inform Elsa but finds Broome on the other end of the line. Broome warns Michael that Grisby was setting him up. Michael rushes to Bannister's office in time to see Bannister is alive but that the police are removing Grisby's body from the premises. The police find evidence implicating Michael, including his confession, and take him away.
At trial, Bannister acts as Michael's attorney. He feels he can win the case if Michael pleads justifiable homicide. During the trial, Bannister learns of his wife's relationship with Michael. He ultimately takes pleasure in his suspicion that they will lose the case. Bannister also indicates that he knows the real killer's identity. Before the verdict, Michael escapes by feigning a suicide attempt. Elsa follows. She and Michael hide in a Chinatown theater. Elsa calls some Chinese friends to meet her. As Michael and Elsa wait and pretend to watch the show, Michael realizes that she had killed Grisby. Elsa's Chinese friends arrive and take Michael, unconscious, to an abandoned Fun House. When he wakes, he realizes that Grisby and Elsa had been planning to murder Bannister and frame him for the crime, but that Broome's involvement ruined the scheme and obliged Elsa to kill Grisby for her own protection. The film features a surreal climactic shootout in a hall of mirrors, the Magic Mirror Maze, in which Elsa is mortally wounded and Bannister is killed. Heartbroken, Michael leaves presuming that events which have unfolded since the trial will clear him of any crimes.
Wikipedia - The Lady from Shanghai
The profound question is whether we, like Michael, can really walk away from the lady from Shanghai? I suspect not. Nor can the United States of America (USA) walk away from EU concern over 'Der Spiegel' claim of US spying. Keep your friends close, Sydney Grew, and your enemies closer! As you from crimes would pardon'd be, let your indulgence set me free. 'The Observer' leads this weekend with some editorial comment about Egypt: a revolution on the brink of self-destruction. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of Egyptians are expected to take to the streets of Cairo and other major cities on Sunday to demand that President Mohamed Morsi , elected exactly one year ago, stand down and make way for some form of transitional government. Hundreds of thousands more, many though not all supporters of the ruling Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, are likely to mount counter-demonstrations, urging President Morsi to carry on regardless. Given the passions aroused on all sides, and the uncompromising, maximalist nature of the opposition's agenda, the scene is thus set for a physical confrontation of possibly epic proportions. Outbreaks of deadly violence have already been reported. Religious leaders have warned of "civil war". The fear is that these clashes may presage, and precipitate, a more general, anarchic breakdown. 'The Observer' observes the following:
" ... In this larger, chronically unstable context, the desirability of reaching a consensus on the way ahead that engages all the various factions as well as President Morsi and the Brotherhood, of an historic national compromise however messy and unsatisfactory, of a collective effort to pull, prod and coax the country into the next stage of its post-revolution development, seems undeniable. Egypt, literally, cannot afford to fight. The Arab world awaits its choice. The Arab spring, that fragile growth, awaits its example. The revolution's mantra, "bread, freedom, social justice", must be honoured. But bread comes first."
In Fyodor Dostoyevsky's masterpiece, 'The Brothers Karamazov' (1879–1880), the Grand Inquisitor says "We are not with Thee (Jesus Christ), but with him (Satan), and that is our secret! For centuries have we abandoned Thee to follow him." For Satan, through compulsion, provided the tools to end all human suffering and for humanity to unite under the banner of the Church. The multitude then is guided through the Church by the few who are strong enough to take on the burden of freedom. The Inquisitor says that under him, all mankind will live and die happily in ignorance. Though he leads them only to "death and destruction," they will be happy along the way. The Inquisitor will be a self-martyr, spending his life to keep choice from humanity. He states that "Anyone who can appease a man's conscience can take his freedom away from him."
The Inquisitor advances this argument by explaining why Christ was wrong to reject each temptation by Satan. Christ should have turned stones into bread, as men will always follow those who will feed their bellies. The Inquisitor recalls how Christ rejected this saying, "Man cannot live on bread alone," and explains to Christ "Feed men, and then ask of them virtue! That's what they'll write on the banner they'll raise against Thee and with which they will destroy Thy temple. Where Thy temple stood will rise a new building; the terrible tower of Babel will be built again, and though, like the one of old, it will not be finished". Casting himself down from the temple to be caught by angels would cement his godhood in the minds of people, who would follow him forever. Rule over all the kingdoms of the Earth would ensure their salvation, the Grand Inquisitor claims.
Wikipedia - The Grand Inquisitor
I propose some toast: to the Lady from Shanghai, the Grand Inquisitor and all of you! Three cheers from kleines c and the gang (Sunday morning breakfast coffee)!
