The Lady from Shanghai (Welles, 1946)
This noir film pushes the genre into depths of claustrophobic nightmare. As with many noir films, the plot becomes a lure for the spectator, an armature built on lies, deceit and venality, all apparently generated by the sultry femme fatale Rita Hayworth, wife of director Orson Welles at the time. In the film, Hayworth is married to a brilliant but disabled lawyer (Everett Sloan) who masochistically pushes his wife into the arms of the hired seaman (Welles) amidst an intrigue of murder, sex, jealousy, and money that ends appropriately in a spectacular hall of mirrors. Director and Welles scholar Peter Bogdanovitch declared it an expressionist departure from the rigid formalism of the Hollywood narrative to become “the watershed film feature of its time.”
Doors open at 6 PM. Refreshments provided. There is a $2 suggested donation.
