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Doris Fisher

The Lady from Shanghai – the weirdest great movie ever made

The Lady from Shanghai – hallucinatory, baffling, sinister, brilliant, twisted. All of those adjectives apply to this flawed masterpiece by one of cinema’s great magicians. Or, in the words of Dave Kehr, the weirdest great movie ever made.

The Lady from Shanghai has become something of a cult for movie buffs, particularly for connoisseurs of film noir. It’s full of originality, strangeness and atmosphere. But the film we see today is very different from the one that Orson Welles, its writer, director, producer and co-star, envisioned. And the story behind it has enough twists and turns to form the basis of a movie in its own right.

If you’ve never seen the movie, now’s the time to find out what you’ve been missing. If you have a blu-ray player, try to get hold of the Mill Creek Entertainment transfer.

Spoiler Alert!!! Let’s begin with the main characters and the plot of the film itself. So, stop reading now if you’ve never seen The Lady from Shanghai and want to watch it without knowing the plot in advance.

The Lady from Shanghai – characters, plot and things to look out for

Rita Hayworth as Elsa Bannister in The Lady from Shanghai
1947. Rita Hayworth as Elsa Bannister in The Lady from Shanghai. Photo by Robert Coburn.

There are five main protagonists in The Lady from Shanghai:

  • Michael O’Hara, an unemployed freelance sailor who acts as the film’s narrator. Orson Welles cast himself in the role, assuming a less-than-convincing Irish accent. For all that, his wistful voice-over imbues the film with a sense of overwhelming sadness, world-weariness and resignation.
  • Elsa Bannister, the drop-dead gorgeous lady from Shanghai with a murky past and a great deal on her mind. This role marked a radical departure from those previously played by Rita Hayworth.
  • Arthur Bannister, Elsa’s husband whose brilliant legal mind is in stark contrast with his pitiful, crippled body. He’s played with “hawk-like malevolence” by Mercury Player Everett Sloane, who made his screen debut in Citizen Kane. And indeed Arthur Bannister, like Charles Foster Kane, is full of despair despite his success.
  • George Grisby, Arthur Bannister’s sweaty, bulging-eyed, leering legal partner, obsessed with the atom bomb and the end of the world. He has a habit of calling people “fella,” presumably a reference to Nelson Rockefeller, who had recruited Welles to create It’s All True (a film comprising three stories about Latin America), only to terminate the project before it came to fruition. Glenn Anders’ performance in the role all but steals the show.
  • Sidney Broome, a private detective hired by Arthur Bannister to spy on Elsa. This marked Ted de Corsia’s screen debut and he went on to play a number of villains in movies including Jules Dassin’s terrific The Naked City (1948).

The Lady from Shanghai has a tortuous, labyrinthine storyline. At the beginning, it’s easy to follow. But as the film moves towards its shattering (literally!) climax, the intrigue careers out of control, piling plot-twist on plot-twist. Perhaps things would have been spelled out more clearly had the film not been cut by an hour and subjected to numerous retakes and edits. But even before that happened… after the preview showing, Harry Cohn, Columbia’s president, offered to pay anyone in the room US$1,000 if they could explain the storyline. So perhaps it was always Welles’ intention to take his audience for a ride.

The following sequence of stills should help you to make sense of the plot. The synopsis in the captions draws on a much longer and rather brilliant one at Filmsite.org.

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Michael O’Hara meets Elsa Bannister

1. Michael O’Hara meets Elsa Bannister

Michael O’Hara meets and is captivated by Elsa Bannister as she is riding in a horse-drawn carriage through Central Park in New York. After they part, he hears her scream and rescues her from muggers. He learns about her past and talks about his. She offers him a job as a crew member on board her yacht. Later he meets George Grisby and Sidney Broome, from whom he learns that Elsa is married to Arthur Bannister, a renowned San Francisco lawyer.

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Arthur Bannister comes to find Michael O'Hara

2. Arthur Bannister comes to find Michael

The next day, Arthur Bannister, crippled and by implication impotent, comes looking for Michael at the seamen’s hiring hall. He reiterates the job offer.

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Arthur Bannister takes Michael O'Hara for a drink

3. Bannister takes Michael for a drink

Bannister takes Michael and two of his mates to a bar for a drink. When he gets legless, Michael takes him home.

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Elsa Bannister and Bessie, her maid

4. Bessie is concerned for her mistress

The Bannisters’ maidservant Bessie is concerned for her mistress and urges Michael to help the vulnerable “child” – “She needs you bad, you stay”.

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Elsa Bannister flirts with Michael O’Hara

5. All at sea

The cruise is sultry and fraught. A strange sense of doom and a malicious torpor hangs over the yacht like an albatross. At sea, Grisby, who has joined the party, asks Michael if he would be prepared to commit a murder. The conversation is interrupted by Elsa calling Michael, with whom she has begun to flirt. Grisby sees them embrace.

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A picnic in the jungle

6. A picnic in the jungle

Bannister organizes a picnic that requires the whole crew to make their way through a dangerous jungle on the Mexican coast. He tells Broome, the yacht’s steward, that he (Bannister) will be the victim of a murder plot. Elsa tells Michael that Broome is actually a private detective whose remit is to spy on her so that in the event of a divorce she would be left with nothing. At the picnic, the Bannisters bait each other about Michael’s role as her “big, strong bodyguard.” When they call him to join them, he likens them to a pack of blood-seeking sharks.

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George Grisby makes Michael O'Hara a strange proposition

7. Grisby makes Michael a strange proposition

Docked in Acapulco, Grisby offers Michael $5,000 to murder him.

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Michael O'Hara promises to take care of Elsa Bannister

8. Michael promises to take care of Elsa

The following night, when Elsa comes to find him on one of the city’s streets, Michael tells her about Grisby’s weird proposal. When Broome appears in the shadows, Michael knocks him out. Elsa runs away from the scene but Michael catches up and promises to take care of her.

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Elsa Bannister at the San Francisco aquarium

9. The plot thickens

The cruise ends in San Francisco, where Michael proposes to Elsa that he accept Grisby’s offer and use the money to elope with her. She declines his offer.

Grisby reveals that his plan is for an insurance scam: if either of the partners in the firm of Bannister & Grisby dies, the other stands to get a lucrative pay-out.

Next morning, in Grisby’s office Michael listens to part of the typed statement he must sign, admitting to killing Grisby. Grisby persuades him to go ahead on the basis that he, Grisby, will disappear and that in California a murderer cannot be convicted without a corpse.

The following day, Michael has a clandestine meeting with Elsa at the San Francisco aquarium, where he convinces her to go along with his plan. On reading a copy of the statement he has signed, she warns him that her husband is behind Grisby’s proposal and that it’s some kind of trap.

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George Grisby takes Michael O'Hara for a ride

10. Grisby takes Michael for a ride

At the Bannisters’ house on the night of the fake murder, Broome reveals that he’s rumbled Grisby’s plan, which is in fact to kill Bannister, pin the murder on Michael and run off with Elsa. When he tries to blackmail Grisby, the latter shoots him, then goes out and hands the gun to the unsuspecting Michael to use for the fake murder.

While Grisby and Michael make for the Sausalito dock, Elsa, who has heard the gunshot, finds Broome dying on the kitchen floor and listens unmoved as he tells her about the plot to murder her husband.

At the dock, Grisby smears some of his blood (he’s been cut when the car windscreen was smashed on the way) onto Michael’s clothes and then sails off in a speedboat. Only when he phones the Bannisters’ house and hears Broome’s dying words does Michael realize he’s been taken for a ride:

Get down to the office, Montgomery Street. You was framed. Grisby didn’t want to disappear. He just wanted an alibi – and you’re it. You’re the fall guy. Grisby’s gone down there to kill Bannister now.

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Michael O'Hara is arrested and charged

11. Michael is arrested and charged

Michael rushes into the city to prevent Bannister’s murder but his car is stopped by police, who surround the law office. They discover blood, a written confession and a fired gun. And Michael discovers that Bannister is alive but Grisby is dead.

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The Bannisters discuss Michael O'Hara

12. The Bannisters discuss Michael

Bannister is to act as Michael’s lawyer in the upcoming murder trial. He’d be happy for Michael to be found guilty but doesn’t want Elsa to see him as a martyr.

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Elsa Bannister visits Michael O'Hara in jail

13. Elsa visits Michael in jail

Elsa visits Michael in jail and encourages him to trust Bannister. He tells her what transpired between him and Grisby.

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The courtroom scene in The Lady from Shanghai

14. In court

The courtroom scene is pure farce, with preposterous proceedings (including Bannister making to question himself), an undisciplined jury and disruptive observers.

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Elsa Bannister is called as a witness

15. Elsa is called as a witness

Elsa is called as a witness and questioned about Broome and her feelings for Michael.

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16. Michael tries to commit suicide

16. Michael tries to commit suicide

Just before the jury announce their verdict, Elsa motions Michael to take an overdose of her husband’s painkillers, which are within his reach. He does so and is seized by his guards.

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Michael escapes

17. Michael escapes

In the confusion that follows, Michael overpowers his guards, flees the building and makes for San Fransisco’s Chinatown district. Hiding in a theatre, he is found by Elsa and discovers the gun used to kill Grisby in her handbag.

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Michael O'Hara in the Crazy House

18. The plot revealed

Michael is kidnapped by Elsa’s servants and taken to the Crazy House at an amusement park that’s closed for the season. He realizes that Elsa had plotted with Grisby to kill her husband so that Grisby could get the insurance money. But that her ultimate aim was to kill Grisby once he had served his purpose. When things didn’t go to plan and Grisby shot Broome, she murdered Grisby to ensure he wouldn’t confess their plan to the police. And Michael was always going to be the stooge.

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Michael O'Hara on the Crazy House slide

19. Into the abyss

As he wanders around the Crazy House, Michael trips a mechanism that pitches him down a long, zigzag slide.

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Michael O'Hara and Elsa Bannister in the Hall of Mirrors

20. The dénouement

Michael emerges into the Hall of Mirrors. Elsa appears in a doorway and confesses her guilt while claiming to love Michael. Bannister arrives and threatens Elsa with a letter he has written to the district attorney explaining her guilt and Michael’s innocence. The couple draw guns and begin to fire at the multiple reflections of each other in the mirrors. Once the panes have been shot to smithereens, it is clear that Bannister and Elsa are both fatally wounded.

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Michael O'Hara leaves Elsa Bannister to die

21 The end

Elsa stumbles with Michael into another room where she begs for his sympathy. But he’s having none of it and leaves her dying on the floor. He walks across the street to call the police, reflecting that he will be exonerated by Bannister’s letter.

Note: stills 5 and 8 have been cropped from portrait to landscape format so as not to disrupt the grid.

One of The Lady from Shanghai’s most striking aspects is its cinematography – in particular its use of wide-angle lenses to caricature faces, notably those of Grisby and Bannister; startling camera angles (such as the vertiginous vantage point along the coast from which we see Grisby explain his plot to Michael); and deep focus, which disorients the viewer by giving equal weight to foregrounds and backgrounds. There are also many virtuoso passages. Five of the most remarkable are:

  • The cruise with its sweltering, claustrophobic, voyeuristic atmosphere and the allusions to Elsa’s siren character via the name of the yacht (Circe) and the shots of her reclining on the rocks and singing.
  • The picnic in the jungle with its air of doom, desire and venom, culminating in Michael’s extraordinary speech:

Do you know, once off the hump of Brazil, I saw the ocean so darkened with blood it was black, and the sun fadin’ away over the lip of the sky. We put in at Fortaleza. A few of us had lines out for a bit of idle fishin’. It was me had the first strike. A shark it was, and then there was another and another shark again, till all about the sea was made of sharks, and more sharks still, and the water tall. My shark had torn himself away from the hook, and the scent, or maybe the stain it was, and him bleedin’ his life away, drove the rest of them mad. Then the beasts took to eatin’ each other; in their frenzy, they ate at themselves. You could feel the lust of murder like a wind stingin’ your eyes, and you could smell the death, reekin’ up out of the sea. I never saw anything worse, until this little picnic tonight. And you know, there wasn’t one of them sharks in the whole crazy pack that survived.

  • The aquarium, which provides such a disconcerting setting for Michael’s clandestine meeting with Elsa.
  • The outrageous court scene, which makes a hilarious mockery of the legal system.
  • The Fun House and Hall of Mirrors that Welles created for the film’s dénoement.

The Lady from Shanghai – how it came about

In 1945 Welles found himself in a predicament:

I was working on Around the World in 80 Days [a stage musical based on the Jules Verne novel] and we found ourselves in Boston on the day of the premiere, unable to get the costumes from the station because $50,000 was due and our producer, Mr. Todd, had gone broke. Without that money we couldn’t open. I called Harry Cohn [head of Columbia Studios] in Hollywood…”


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Orson Welles in The Lady from Shanghai

Orson Welles in The Lady from Shanghai

A caption on the back of the photo reads:

ENDANGERED .. Orson Welles in a dramatic scene from Columbia’s “The Lady from Shanghai,” in which he stars with Rita Hayworth.

Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

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Orson Welles in The Lady from Shanghai by Robert Coburn

Orson Welles in The Lady from Shanghai

Orson Welles as Michael O'Hara in The Lady from Shanghai. Photo by Robert Coburn.

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Orson Welles in the Lady from Shanghai by Eddie Cronenweth

Orson Welles in The Lady from Shanghai

A caption on the back of the photo reads:

ENDANGERED .. Orson Welles in a dramatic scene from Columbia’s “The Lady from Shanghai,” in which he stars with Rita Hayworth.

Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

According to Welles, he made the call from a drugstore and when Cohn asked him what the film would be about, he grabbed a novel from a nearby shelf and read out the synopsis on the back. However, Welles was a master of creating his own mythology and the truth is a bit more prosaic. The film is based on Sherwood King’s novel, If I Die Before I Wake. Years earlier, producer William Castle had sold the movie rights to Columbia on the condition that he would be involved should a film be made. He subsequently produced a treatment and set it to Welles, who responded:

About If I Should Die – I love it … I have been searching for an idea for a film, but none presented itself until If I Should Die and I could play the lead and Rita Hayworth could play the girl. I won’t present it to anybody without your OK. The script should be written immediately. Can you start working on it at night?

But why did Harry Cohn go along with the idea, given that at the time Welles was pretty much persona non-grata in Hollywood. Citizen Kane (1941) had done a pretty effective character assassination job on newspaper magnate, William Randolph Hearst, setting Welles up as a threat to the establishment. The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) had gone over budget and failed to recoup its investment. It’s All True was terminated before completion and never saw the light of day. Welles went some way to redeeming his credibility with The Stranger (1946), which came in under budget and proved a modest commercial success.

Perhaps Cohn felt that for the money Welles wanted it was a risk worth taking. Or perhaps he didn’t want to upset Hayworth, his biggest star, by turning down her husband even though the marriage was on the rocks. Besides, the pairing of Welles and Hayworth as the leads could be an intriguing prospect for audiences.

The Lady from Shanghai – Welles’ ambition

Rita Hayworth's million dollar haircut for The Lady from Shanghai
1947. Rita Hayworth’s million dollar haircut for The Lady from Shanghai. Read more.

The first thing Welles did was have Hayworth’s trademark long red hair bobbed and dyed “topaz blonde.” And he made it into a media event, inviting the press to come along and witness the makeover for themselves. It was not what Harry Cohn had in mind for his biggest star and he was furious. In spite of that, the studio released a whole series of shots of the event to the press.

Gossip columnist Louella Parsons (who had it in for Welles ever since he parodied her boss, William Randolph Hearst, in Citizen Kane) claimed that with The Lady from Shanghai he had deliberately and maliciously set out to destroy Rita Hayworth’s career. She then asserted that Welles was “washed up.”

It’s difficult to know what impelled Welles to such a controversial move. He may well have felt ambivalent, even vindictive, about his marriage, and there’s certainly a case to be made for seeing the whole movie as a misogynistic, not to say toxic, farewell to Hayworth. And yet… Is Elsa nothing more than a cold-blooded, scheming femme fatale? It’s tempting to jump to that conclusion. But it’s also possible to see her, like Gilda, as a victim – a woman in a man’s world who’s been exploited her whole life and who is now so desperate she’s prepared to take matters into her own hands.

Back to the haircut and it’s likely that, however he felt about his marriage, with his director’s hat on Welles saw the need for a completely new look that would disassociate Hayworth in audiences’ minds from her previous roles. It was an early symptom of the way in which Cohn’s and Welles’ ambitions for the movie diverged. Cohn was looking for a box-office hit. Welles wanted to produce “something off-center, queer, strange,” according to a memo he sent Cohn, by giving the film a nightmarish feel and striving for performances that were “original, or at least oblique

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Orson Welles with Rita Hayworth just before she has her million dollar haircut for The Lady from Shanghai

Orson Welles with Rita Hayworth before her million dollar haircut for The Lady from Shanghai

1946. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

MILLION DOLLAR HAIRCUT .. Rita Hayworth is shown here with husband Orson Welles just before having her tresses shorn for her starring role in “The Lady from Shanghai,” in which Welles will co-star with her as well as produce and direct it for Columbia Pictures.

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Helen Hunt about to embark on Rita Hayworth's million dollar haircut for The Lady from Shanghai

Helen Hunt about to embark on Rita Hayworth’s million dollar haircut for The Lady from Shanghai

1946. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

MILLION DOLLAR HAIRCUT .. Rita Hayworth is shown here with Columbia’s chief hair stylist, Helen Hunt, just before having her tresses shorn for her starring role in “The Lady from Shanghai,” in which Rita’s husband, Orson Welles, will co-star as well as produce and direct it for Columbia Pictures.

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Helen Hunt giving Rita Hayworth a million dollar haircut for The Lady from Shanghai

Helen Hunt giving Rita Hayworth a million dollar haircut for The Lady from Shanghai

1946. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

MILLION DOLLAR HAIRCUT .. Rita Hayworth is shown here with locks of hair in her hands while Columbia’s chief hair-stylist, Helen Hunt, continues to cut away Rita’s tresses for her role in “The Lady from Shanghai,” in which she has her husband, Orson Welles, as co-star. He is also producer and director of the Columbia picture.

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Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth admiring her million dollar haircut for The Lady from Shanghai

Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth admiring her million dollar haircut for The Lady from Shanghai

1946. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

MILLION DOLLAR HAIRCUT .. Rita Hayworth and husband, Orson Welles, seem pleased with Rita’s new hair style. Rita had her long tresses shorn for her starring role in “The Lady from Shanghai,” in which Welles is her co-star. He is also producer and director of the Columbia picture.

Photo by Homer Van Pelt.

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Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth admiring her million dollar haircut for The Lady from Shanghai

Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth admiring her million dollar haircut for The Lady from Shanghai

1946. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

MILLION DOLLAR HAIRCUT .. Rita Hayworth and husband, Orson Welles, seem pleased with Rita’s new hair style. Rita had her long tresses shorn for her starring role in “The Lady from Shanghai,” in which Welles is her co-star. He is also producer and director of the Columbia picture.

Photo by Homer Van Pelt.

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Rita Hayworth's million dollar haircut for The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth’s million dollar haircut for The Lady from Shanghai

1946. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

THE WORLD’S FIRST TOPAZ BLONDE! Glamorous Rita Hayworth, as this photo shows, has submitted to the ministrations of Columbia Studio’s chief hair stylist, Helen Hunt, to acquire a new coiffure for her forthcoming starring picture, “The Lady From Shanghai.” With 18 inches snipped from her crowning glory, and her titian locks changed to a new blonde called topaz blonde, it is a new and vibrant Rita who faces the cameras these days. “I just didn’t want to stay ‘Gilda’ forever,” Rita explains when asked the reason for the change in her hairdo.

Characteristically, Welles was hugely ambitious for the film. For the opening scene, set in Central Park, he planned the longest dolly shot ever filmed. involving huge arc lights, a sound boom and a 20-foot camera crane, which followed Elsa Bannister’s carriage for nearly a mile. That was just the beginning. He also planned to shoot most of the film on location, something pretty much unheard of in Hollywood at the time since seemingly every cinematic need could be catered for by the vast studio lots and soundstages. For Welles that would have been just too obvious and easy. Plus, shooting on location would have been a great way of escaping Cohn’s surveillance – the mogul bugged Welles’ office at Columbia, as he had Glenn Ford’s dressing room when Gilda was being filmed.

And then there were the sets and set pieces, the two most celebrated being the Fun House (a great set for a fashion shoot – Rita’s wardrobe is by Jean Louis) and the Hall of Mirrors. The inspiration for the former were the expressionist images of the German silent movie, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920). According to Rob Nixon:

Stephen Goosson designed an elaborate set with sliding doors, distorting mirrors and a 125-foot zigzag slide from the roof of a studio sound stage down into a pit that was 80 feet long, 40 feet wide and 20 feet deep. For one shot simulating Welles’ point of view as he hurtled down the slide, Lawton and camera operator Irving Klein slid the entire length of it on their stomachs with the camera on a mat. The director himself spent more than a week from 10:30 at night until 5 in the morning painting the set.

The Hall of Mirrors was designed with the help of special effects wizard Lawrence Butler and contained almost 3,000 square feet of glass. Some of the mirrors were two-way, others had holes through which the camera crew could shoot

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Rita Hayworth fashion shot, The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth fashion shot, The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

PLEATS ARE NEW … Rita Hayworth, in her next Columbia picture, “The Lady From Shanghai,” wears this black dinner dress featuring the new pleated skirt, which is embroidered in amber beads. The dress may be worn with the accompanying V scarf as a tie-on sash or as a head covering.

Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

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Rita Hayworth fashion shot, The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth fashion shot, The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

WHITE FOR EVENING … Rita Hayworth, co-starring with Orson Welles in Columbia's "The Lady From Shanghai" wears this lovely white marquisette creation by designer Jean Louis against the background of an amusement park "fun house." It is there that one of the most dramatic sequences of the picture takes place.

Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

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Rita Hayworth fashion shot, The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth fashion shot, The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

PLEATS ARE NEW … Rita Hayworth, in her next Columbia picture, “The Lady From Shanghai,” wears this black dinner dress featuring the new pleated skirt, which is embroidered in amber beads. The dress may be worn with the accompanying V scarf as a tie-on sash or as a head covering.

Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

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Rita Hayworth fashion shot, The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth fashion shot, The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

PLEATS ARE NEW … Rita Hayworth, in her next Columbia picture, “The Lady From Shanghai,” wears this black dinner dress featuring the new pleated skirt, which is embroidered in amber beads. The dress may be worn with the accompanying V scarf as a tie-on sash or as a head covering.

Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

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Rita Hayworth fashion shot, The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth fashion shot, The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

DRESSY BLACK … Rita Hayworth, in her next Columbia picture, “The Lady From Shanghai,” wears this smart black wool suit designed by Jean Louis. The fashion interest in this lies in the contrast between the dull of the fabric and the shiny satin trim. This shot was taken on the “fun house” set, where one of the most dramatic moments of the picture takes place.

Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

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Rita Hayworth fashion shot, The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth fashion shot, The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

DRESSY BLACK … Rita Hayworth, in her next Columbia picture, “The Lady From Shanghai,” wears this smart black wool suit designed by Jean Louis. The fashion interest in this lies in the contrast between the dull of the fabric and the shiny satin trim. This shot was taken on the “fun house” set, where one of the most dramatic moments of the picture takes place.

Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

When it came to cinematography, Welles and his director of photography, Charles Lawton Jr, decided to use low-key interior lighting and natural light wherever possible. For outdoor skies and transitions between outdoor and indoor scenes they employed filters. And they exploited wide-angle lenses to lend distortion to close-ups. Shooting on board a yacht was always going to be a challenge – the sort of thing Welles loved. So he and Lawton did a series of experimental test shoots to determine how to deal with the problem of over-exposure – the light meters struggled to cope with the glare of the sea and sky. They also turned the lack of space on the yacht to their advantage by creating cramped, claustrophobic compositions. And for the aquarium scene they got seriously tricksy. First they shot the fish-tanks separately. Then they enlarged the resulting film and used it as the background for the close-ups of Michael and Elsa, making the sea creatures appear super-size and super-sinister.

The Lady from Shanghai – a disaster in the making

Rita Hayworth takes time to relax during the filming of The Lady from Shanghai
1947. Rita Hayworth relaxes at home after a day at the studios. Photo by Ned Scott. Read more.

Shooting began in autumn 1946 in locations including Acapulco, San Francisco and New York as well as Columbia Studios – for details and photos take a look at Reel SF. For the Acapulco shoot, which took more than 35 days, Welles rented Errol Flynn’s yacht, and Columbia sent 40 technicians and more than six tons of equipment.

Even under the most favourable circumstances, the location shoot was never going to be straightforward. The jungle picnic scenes were filmed close to a crocodile-infested river. Poisonous barnacles had to be scraped off the rock from which Elsa dives into the ocean. A spear-wielding Mexican swimming champion had to be employed to swim off-camera to protect Hayworth from deadly barracuda.

But it was as if the shoot was cursed. In Mexico, the cast and crew were plagued by problems, many of them detailed by producer William Castle in his diary. During the day, the temperature was sweltering. At night, clouds of poisonous insects swarmed around the arc lights, sometimes rendering them useless. Histamine poisoning from an insect bite caused such swelling to one of Welles’ eyes that he couldn’t open it. And half the crew went down with dysentery. Meanwhile, Hayworth was sick throughout the shoot, collapsing both In Mexico and in San Francisco, and halting production for a month.

Worst of all, on the first day of shooting, assistant cameraman Donald Ray Cory, working bareheaded in the blazing sun, had a heart attack and died. Rumour has it that Errol Flynn, who insisted on captaining his boat and was regularly drunk and abusive, wanted the body dumped into the ocean in a duffle bag. The crew ignored him, discreetly put the corpse ashore and hushed the incident up.

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Rita Hayworth dines in her dressing room between scenes while filming The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth dines in her dressing room while filming The Lady from Shanghai

A caption on the back of the photo reads:

HOLLYWOOD CHOW TIME .. Glamorous Rita Hayworth, in her new topaz blonde coiffure, is so busy filming “The Lady from Shanghai” with her husband and co-star, Orson Welles, that she doesn’t have time to leave her portable dressing room at Columbia Studio for lunch. So she dines on her makeup table, and seems to be really enjoying it.

Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

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Rita Hayworth and Orson Welles off to Mexico to film The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth and Orson Welles off to Mexico for The Lady from Shanghai

A caption on the back of the photo reads:

OFF TO MEXICO: Glamour star Rita Hayworth and husband Orson Welles are shown here as they boarded a special plane at Lockheed Air Terminal, Los Angeles, en route to Acapulco, Mexico, for location scenes for the Columbia picture, “The Lady From Shanghai,” in which the pair co-star. Welles is also writer-director-producer of the film.

Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

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Joseph Cotton and his wife with Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth backstage on The Lady from Shanghai

Joseph Cotton and his wife backstage on The Lady from Shanghai

A caption on the back of the photo reads:

VISITORS .. Joseph Cotten (with straw hat) and Mrs. Cotten (far right) visit Rita Hayworth and Orson Welles on the Columbia soundstage where Rita and Orson are filming “The Lady from Shanghai.” And the straw hat on Cotten is no gag! When Orson saw Joe on the set, he immediately ordered a wardrobe man to bring Joe a hat and bandanna, and put Cotten to work doing a walk-through in a brief street scene in “The Lady from Shanghai.”

Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

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Rita Hayworth poses for Eddie Cronenweth

Rita Hayworth photo shoot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

LOOK PRETTY, PLEASE .. Lovely Rita Hayworth, in a fetching shorts outfit, poses for still photographer Eddie Cronenweth, in the patio of the Hotel Casablanca at Acapulco, Mexico, where Rita and Orson Welles took their Columbia Studio crew and supporting cast on location to film scenes for 'The Lady from Shanghai."

Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

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Rita Hayworth poses for Eddie Cronenweth

Rita Hayworth photo shoot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

LOOK AT THE BIRDIE .. Lovely Rita Hayworth poses for still photographer Eddie Cronenweth in the patio of the Hotel Casablanca, in Acapulco, Mexico, where Rita and Orson Welles took the Columbia Studio crew and supporting cast to film location scenes for "The Lady from Shanghai."

Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

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Rita Hayworth poses for Eddie Cronenweth

Rita Hayworth photo shoot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

GLAMOROUS .. Lovely Rita Hayworth poses for still photographer Eddie Cronenweth on the terrace of the Hotel Casablanca at Acapulco, Mexico, where Rita and Orson Welles took their Columbia Studio crew and supporting cast on location to film scenes for “The Lady from Shanghai."

Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

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Orson Welles gets a quick trim from makeup expert Bob Schiffer between scenes of The Lady from Shanghai

Orson Welles and Bob Schiffer between scenes of The Lady from Shanghai

A caption on the back of the photo reads:

NEXT!! .. Orson Welles gets a quick trim from makeup expert Bob Schiffer between location scenes of Columbia’s “The Lady from Shanghai,” on a beach near Acapulco in tropical Mexico. “The Lady from Shanghai,” thrilling story of love and crime, stars Rita Hayworth and Welles.

Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

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Orson Welles prepares to film a location scene for The Lady from Shanghai

Orson Welles prepares to film a location scene for The Lady from Shanghai

A caption on the back of the photo reads:

ON LOCATION .. Orson Welles (on platform) prepares to film a location scene in tropical Mexico for Columbia’s “The Lady from Shanghai,” in which he is starred with Rita Hayworth.

Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

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Orson Welles prepares to film a location scene for The Lady from Shanghai

Orson Welles prepares to film a location scene for The Lady from Shanghai

A caption on the back of the photo reads:

ON LOCATION .. Orson Welles (on platform) prepares to film a location scene in tropical Mexico for Columbia’s “The Lady from Shanghai,” in which he is starred with Rita Hayworth.

Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

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Rita Hayworth with Robert Coburn between scenes during the filming of The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth with Robert Coburn while filming The Lady from Shanghai

A caption on the back of the photo reads:

LOOK AT THE BIRDIE .. Lovely Rita Hayworth poses for Columbia’s chief still photographer, Robert Coburn, between scenes of “The Lady from Shanghai,” in which she and Orson Welles are co-starred.

Photo by Ned Scott.

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Rita Hayworth shopping in Acapulco while filming The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth shopping in Acapulco while filming The Lady from Shanghai

A caption on the back of the photo reads:

SHOPPING IN OLD MEXICO .. Rita Hayworth buys a colorful native bare-midriff beach outfit from Julia Polin during the lovely star’s 6-week stay in Acapulco with Orson Welles to film location scenes in a Mexican background for Columbia’s “The Lady from Shanghai.”

Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

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Orson Welles directing Carl Frank and Rita Hayworth in The Lady from Shanghai

Orson Welles directing Carl Frank and Rita Hayworth in The Lady from Shanghai

A caption on the back of the photo reads:

MENACE .. This is the picture you won’t see on the screen. It shows Orson Welles, his usual mug of steaming coffee in hand, directing Carl Frank and Rita Hayworth in a dramatic courtroom cross-examination scene for Columbia Pictures’ “The Lady from Shanghai.” Orson is producer, writer, director and co-star with Rita in “The Lady from Shanghai.” Frank plays the role of a tough district attorney.

Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

And then there were problems Welles brought on himself by his way of working. He would rewrite the script from day to day so everyone ended up confused. And as a director he would give his actors a hard time. Sometimes he deliberately upset them to get nervous, edgy performances. Other times he would cause them to forget their lines and improvise on the spot. By all accounts, it was not a happy project.

Welles never viewed the rushes; he just shipped them straight off to Columbia. There they were reviewed by Viola Lawrence, the studio’s chief editor. As a firm advocate of using close-ups and highlighting actors’ eyes to convey drama and emotion, she was horrified to discover that the rushes contained no close-up shots of Hayworth. She reported this to Cohn, who sent orders to rectify this. On location, Welles refused to do so. Back on the studio lot, he caved in. On Cohn’s orders, he also added the scene of Elsa singing on the yacht.

The Lady from Shanghai – from bad to worse

The rough cut of the film was based on an editing concept outlined by Welles. It ran approximately 155 minutes. But Welles’ contract with Columbia left it up to the studio to decide who would edit the final cut. Their choice was Lawrence, who had previously worked on Rita Hayworth vehicles Cover Girl and Tonight and Every Night, and would go on to work on Down to Earth, Affair in Trinidad, Salome, Miss Sadie Thompson and Pal Joey.

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Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. Rita Hayworth wears a sexy black evening gown in The Lady from Shanghai. Photo by Robert Coburn.

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Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. Rita Hayworth wears a sexy black evening gown in The Lady from Shanghai. Photo by Homer Van Pelt.

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Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. Rita Hayworth wears a sexy black evening gown in The Lady from Shanghai. Photo by Robert Coburn.

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Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. Rita Hayworth wears a sexy black evening gown in The Lady from Shanghai. Photo by Robert Coburn.

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Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. Rita Hayworth wears a sexy black evening gown in The Lady from Shanghai. Photo by Homer Van Pelt.

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Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

GLAMOUR – Rita Hayworth wears a revealing black evening gown in Columbia’s “The Lady from Shanghai,” in which she and Orson Welles are co-starred.

Photo by Homer Van Pelt.

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Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. Rita Hayworth wears a sexy black evening gown in The Lady from Shanghai. Photo by Robert Coburn.

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Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

TOPAZ BLONDE – Glamorous Rita Hayworth, who appears as a topaz blonde in her latest Columbia picture, “The Lady from Shanghai,” in which Orson Welles is her co-star.

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Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. Rita Hayworth wears a sexy black evening gown in The Lady from Shanghai. Photo by Robert Coburn.

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Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. Rita Hayworth wears a sexy black evening gown in The Lady from Shanghai. Photo by Robert Coburn.

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Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. Rita Hayworth wears a sexy black evening gown in The Lady from Shanghai.

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Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. Rita Hayworth wears a sexy black evening gown in The Lady from Shanghai. Photo by Homer Van Pelt.

Taking her orders from Cohn, she cut about 55 minutes from the movie, including the opening dolly shot in Central Park, much of the Chinese opera sequence and most of the Fun House scene – all highlights of the original concept; the fashion shoot above shows just how weird and wonderful the set was). Quite apart from the damage done to the storyline, the continuity of Welles’ long takes was disrupted by the insertion of close-ups, and the result is a bewildering hotchpotch. Welles accepted some responsibility for the fiasco but pushed most of the blame onto Lawrence’s editing.

Rita Hayworth filming a location scene off the coast of Mexico for The Lady from Shanghai
1947. Rita Hayworth films a location scene off the coast of Mexico for The Lady from Shanghai. Photo by Eddie Cronenweth. Read more.

What he was most upset about was what became of the soundtrack. He’d wanted to use sound to unsettle the audience – for example by fading in voices so quietly that viewers would have to strain to make out what was being said. Traces of what he intended are evident in the grating voices of Bannister and Grisby and the final dialogue in the Hall of Mirrors.

After the success of the songs, Amado Mio and Put the Blame on Mame in Gilda, Cohn insisted on retrofitting a song into The Lady from Shanghai. The result was Please Don’t Kiss Me, commissioned from the same team – Alan Roberts and Doris Fisher (with Hayworth’s singing voice once again dubbed by Anita Ellis). The song itself is a class act. What absolutely isn’t is the way in which it is exploited as the background track for pretty much the entire movie, replacing the original score by George Antheil. Welles was incensed:

The only idea which seems to have occurred to this present composer is the rather weary one of using a popular song – the “theme – in as many arrangements as possible. Throughout we have musical references to “Please Don’t Kiss Me” for almost every bridge and also for a great deal of the background material. The tune is pleasing, it may do very well on the Hit Parade — but Lady from Shanghai is not a musical comedy.

The Lady from Shanghai – from box office failure to cult

When The Lady from Shanghai was completed in 1946 Columbia got cold feet. They were worried that it would bomb at the box office and anxious to protect Hayworth’s image. So they chose to hold it until after they’d released Down To Earth (1947) – a much more commercial movie. The Lady from Shanghai ran first in Europe (1947), where it was generally well received, before finally opening in the US in 1948, seven months after Welles and Hayworth were divorced. The studio did nothing to push the film, allowing it to be shown as the bottom half of double bills.

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Rita Hayworth publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. Rita Hayworth, as Elsa Bannister in The Lady from Shanghai, chats on the phone. Photo by Robert Coburn.

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Rita Hayworth publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

TOPAZ BLONDE .. Glamorous Rita Hayworth, who appears as a topaz blonde in her latest Columbia picture, "The Lady from Shanghai," in which she and Orson Welles co-star.

Photo by Robert Coburn.

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Rita Hayworth publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. Rita Hayworth poses in a killer, black-satin gown by Jean Louis for a publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai. Photo by Robert Coburn.

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Rita Hayworth publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

TOPAZ BLONDE .. Glamorous Rita Hayworth, who appears as a topaz blonde in her latest Columbia picture, "The Lady from Shanghai," in which she and Orson Welles co-star.

Photo by Robert Coburn.

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Rita Hayworth publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. Rita Hayworth as Elsa Bannister, dressed by Jean Louis to kill in The Lady from Shanghai.

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Rita Hayworth publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

TOPAZ BLONDE .. Glamorous Rita Hayworth, who appears as a topaz blonde in her latest Columbia picture, "The Lady from Shanghai," in which she and Orson Welles co-star.

Photo by Robert Coburn.

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Rita Hayworth publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. Rita Hayworth sports her dramatic new haircut in this publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai. Photo by Robert Coburn.

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Rita Hayworth publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

JACKETS FOR MOTORISTS … Lovely Rita Hayworth, who is currently working in Columbia’s “The Lady From Shanghai,” has found the ideal coat. Made of broadtail, it is designed after the Navy “P” jackets, its length and fullness allowing complete freedom.

Photo by Ned Scott.

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Rita Hayworth publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

TOPAZ BLONDE .. Glamorous Rita Hayworth, who appears as a topaz blonde in her latest Columbia picture, "The Lady from Shanghai," in which she and Orson Welles co-star.

Photo by Robert Coburn.

Contemporary critics were pretty disparaging. Bosley Crowther opened his review for The New York Times with:

For a fellow who has as much talent with a camera as Orson Welles and whose powers of pictorial invention are as fluid and as forcible as his, this gentleman certainly has a strange way of marring his films with sloppiness which he seems to assume that his dazzling exhibitions of skill will camouflage.

John Carter’s review for The New Yorker was in a similar vein: “The penny-dreadful aspects of The Lady from Shanghai are obvious, but the film is nevertheless often remarkable.” While William Brogden, in Variety wrote:

The Lady from Shanghai is okay boxoffice [sic]. It’s exploitable and has Rita Hayworth’s name for the marquees. Entertainment value suffered from the striving for effect that features Orson Welles’ production, direction and scripting. Script is wordy and full of holes which need the plug of taut story telling and more forthright action.

So The Lady from Shanghai sank without trace and for many years was regarded as one of Welles’ great failures. In an interview with Peter Bogdanovich, he remembered how:

Friends avoided me. Whenever it was mentioned, people would clear their throats and change the subject very quickly out of consideration for my feelings. I only found out that it was considered a good picture when I got to Europe. The first nice thing I ever heard about it from an American was from Truman Capote.

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Rita Hayworth autographs fan photos between takes of The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth autographs fan photos between takes of The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

FAN PICTURES…Whenever Rita Hayworth has a few minutes between scenes she autographs pictures for her fans in her roomy studio apartment. Rita has departed for an extended European tour after completing her latest Columbia picture, “The Lady from Shanghai."

Photo attributed to Robert Coburn.

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Rita Hayworth autographs fan photos between takes of The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth autographs fan photos between takes of The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

FAN PICTURES…Whenever Rita Hayworth has a few minutes between scenes she autographs pictures for her fans in her roomy studio apartment. Rita has departed for an extended European tour after completing her latest Columbia picture, “The Lady from Shanghai."

Photo by Robert Coburn.

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Rita Hayworth in her boudoir during the filming of The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth in her boudoir during the filming of The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

MIRROR, MIRROR, ON THE WALL … Lovely Rita Hayworth pauses a minute from brushing her new coiffure. Her hair was cut short and lightened to a topaz blonde for her role in Columbia’s, “The Lady From Shanghai.”

Photo by Robert Coburn.

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Rita Hayworth about to go on tour after completing The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth about to go on tour after completing The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

RITA’S BEDROOM .. Rita Hayworth’s bedroom in her Santa Monica home is done in a soft blue grey with accents of color in the lamps and other furnishings. It will be months before Rita sleeps in it again, as she left for an extensive European tour after she completed her latest Columbia picture, “The Lady from Shanghai.”

Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

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Rita Hayworth relaxes after completing The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth relaxes after completing The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

RITA RELAXING .. Rita Hayworth, after completing her Columbia picture, “The Lady from Shanghai,” enjoyed a fortnight of relaxation in her own back yard before departing on an extensive European tour.

Photo by Robert Coburn.

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Rita Hayworth relaxes after completing The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth relaxes after completing The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

RITA RELAXING .. Rita Hayworth, after completing her Columbia picture, “The Lady from Shanghai,” enjoyed a fortnight of relaxation in her own back yard before departing on an extensive European tour.

Photo by Robert Coburn.

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Rita Hayworth about to go on tour after completing The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth about to go on tour after completing The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

HAYWORTH AT HOME .. Rita Hayworth, who recently completed “The Lady from Shanghai," at Columbia, enjoyed a fortnight of relaxation at her Santa Monica home before departing for an extended tour of Europe.

Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

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Rita Hayworth about to go on tour after completing The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth about to go on tour after completing The Lady from Shanghai

1947. Rita Hayworth relaxes in the garden of her Santa Monica home before leaving for an extended tour of Europe. Photo attributed to Eddie Cronenweth.

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Rita Hayworth smiles off set during the filming of The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth smiles off set during the filming of The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

TOPAZ BLONDE .. Glamorous Rita Hayworth, who appears as a topaz blonde in her latest Columbia picture, “The Lady from Shanghai,” in which Orson Welles is her co-star.

Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

More recently, though, not least thanks to the advocacy of François Truffaut, critical opinion has swung behind The Lady from Shanghai, with Dave Kehr in his review for the Chicago Reader dubbing it “the weirdest great movie ever made.” Flawed masterpiece is probably the best description of the film, which in many respects makes it a whole lot more interesting than a perfect masterpiece (if such a thing even exists).

Want to know more about The Lady from Shanghai?

Ava Gardner and Orson Welles on the set of The Lady from Shanghai
1947. The pixie looks like he belongs to the Fun House – hence the suggestion that this photo was taken on the set of The Lady from Shanghai, supported by Welles’ suit and haircut. This is an incredibly rare image – apparently sthe only photo of the two stars together.

There are some brilliant analyses and critiques of The Lady from Shanghai available online.

  • Filmsite Movie Review has some good background and an excellent, detailed plot synopsis.
  • Brian Phillips provided a combination of background fact and insightful observations in his piece, Through a Glass, Darkly: ‘The Lady From Shanghai’ and the Legend of Orson Welles for Grantland (unfortunately now defunct).
  • Chris Justice offers a similar combination of background and analysis, well worth reading at senses of cinema.
  • Among a series of articles at TCM (apparently not accessible outside the US), Why The Lady from Shanghai is Essential by James Steffen & Rob Nixon and Behind the Camera on The Lady from Shanghai by Rob Nixon stand out.
  • Stories Behind The Screen has some great anecdotes about the making of the film.
  • Reel SF covers the locations with then and now shots together with interactive maps of Acapulco and San Fransisco.

Other pieces worth reading are at:

  • Film Noir of the Week
  • Film Court
  • Parallax View.

If you’d like to know more about Orson Welles, then Rosebud: The Story of Orson Welles by David Thomson is a terrific read.

Other topics you may be interested in…

Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth at loggerheads
Celebrity break-up – why Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth split
Cover girl Rita Hayworth with magazines
Cover Girl – fashion goes to the movies
Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford in a passionate embrace
Gilda – the movie that made Rita Hayworth into a bombshell

Filed Under: Films, Stars Tagged With: Alan Roberts, Anita Ellis, Doris Fisher, Everett Sloane, George Antheil, Glenn Anders, Harry Cohn, Jean Louis, Louella Parsons, Orson Welles, Rita Hayworth, Ted de Corsia, The Lady from Shanghai, Viola Lawrence

Gilda – the movie that made Rita Hayworth into a bombshell

Gilda is a landmark 1940s movie. It was one of the first to capture the angst that would infuse post-World War II film noir, and it gave Rita Hayworth her most famous role, transforming her image overnight from dancing queen to femme fatale.

In the movie’s most celebrated scene, she does an impossibly seductive striptease that involves the removal of just two long, black-satin gloves. It’s a performance charged with eroticism, desperation and tragedy and it cemented Rita’s status as Hollywood’s reigning love goddess of the 1940s. Movie posters screamed “There NEVER was a woman like Gilda!”, and Rita is reported to have said, “Every man I knew had fallen in love with Gilda and wakened with me.”

Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford in a passionate embrace
1945. Gilda (Rita Hayworth) and Johnny (Glenn Ford) in a passionate embrace. Photo by Robert Coburn. Read more.

If you’ve never seen the movie, now’s the time to find out what you’ve been missing. If you have a blu-ray player, make sure you get the Criterion transfer.

Spoiler Alert!!! Stop reading now if you want to watch Gilda without knowing the plot in advance.

Gilda – the story in a nutshell

Johnny Farrell (Glenn Ford) is a down-at-heel, card-sharp and gambling cheat whom we meet taking advantage of a group of sailors in Buenos Aires. Threatened by one of them as he leaves the docks, he is rescued by Ballin Mundson (George Macready), who invites him to his casino, where he becomes manager.

The arrangement is disrupted by the arrival of Gilda (Rita Hayworth), Johnny’s old flame but now Ballin’s wife. And, like Johnny, she jumps from opportunity to opportunity, looking for the next path to fortune. Gilda and Johnny are two of a kind and take every opportunity to wind each other up. A bad situation is made worse by Ballin ordering Johnny to look after Gilda. Their secret festers and the erotic tension escalates. The pair seem to delight in hurting and humiliating each other.

Meanwhile, we discover that the casino is merely a front for a cartel run by Ballin and a group of ex-Nazis to control the international tungsten market. As the police close in, Ballin fakes his death, and Johnny marries Gilda – not, as it turns out, because he loves her but in order to punish her for being unfaithful to Ballin.

Ballin returns to exact revenge but gets his come-uppance, leaving Johnny and Gilda to walk out into the sunset.

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are-you-decent

1. Are you decent, Gilda?

On his return from a business trip, Ballin leads Johnny to the master bedroom. We’ve been waiting for Rita’s entrance for over quarter of an hour.

First we hear her singing to herself off-camera. Then she detonates onto the screen in a pose that would have reminded contemporary audiences of Bob Landry’s famous 1941 photo of her for Life magazine.

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hate-is-a-very-exciting-emotion

2. Hate is a very exciting emotion

The carnival is in full swing as Johnny picks up Gilda. Later they return to Ballin’s empty mansion. Rudolph Maté's lighting and cinematography for the bedroom scene is wonderfully moody and the electricity between the pair is palpable.

Ballin returns unexpectedly en route to the airport to escape the police, throwing Johnny into a fit of confusion and angst.

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amado-mio

3. Amado Mio

Suffocated by her sham marriage to Johnny, Gilda flees to Montevideo and gets a job singing in a nightclub.

Amado Mio is a gorgeous number set to a pulsating rhumba beat. The choreography is wonderfully sensuous but we don’t know who was the man behind the moves. Surely it must have been Jack Cole, who masterminded Put the Blame on Mame?

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put-the-blame-on-mame

4. Put the Blame on Mame

Known as the "Father of Theatrical Jazz Dance," Jack Cole worked with the likes of Marilyn Monroe, Betty Grable and Mitzi Gaynor as well as Rita Hayworth. Before Gilda, they collaborated on Cover Girl (1944) and Tonight and Every Night (1945). Of the Put the Blame on Mame sequence in Gilda, he said:

I must say of all the things I ever did for movies, that’s one of the few I can really look at on the screen right now and say: If you want to see a beautiful, erotic woman, this is it. It still remains first class, it could be done right now. A lot of old things make you go wow! And you have to remember a lot about the period to explain why you did what you did, and make allowances. But every time I see "Put the Blame on Mame" I feel it’s absolutely great.

Gilda – just-in-time production

The making of Gilda turns out to be a pretty haphazard affair. There’s friction behind the scenes (more of that later) between studio boss, Harry Cohn, director, Charles Vidor and various members of the cast and crew. What’s more, the producer, Virginia Van Upp, whom Cohn has assigned to fashion a sexy new film for Rita Hayworth, has too much on her plate (she almost certainly has a hand in the screenplay by Marion Parsonnet). An article in the July 1946 issue of Screenland reports that:

Even today, when perhaps she should be resting on her laurels, she is still doing a double job. For one thing, her pictures are too close together to allow time to write them in advance. Instead, she stays on the set all day to see that each scene is photographed as she intended and then goes home and writes all night. She writes the script as she goes along, about five days in advance of the shooting schedule.

Charles Vidor recalls:

We didn’t have a finished script, we never knew what was coming next and we even started the picture without a leading man. Every night as we quit we got the next day’s scenes. Rita had to study at night, so did I, so did Jean Louis the dress designer, but somehow he kept one leap ahead of us all. So that particular ‘Mame’ morning, none of us knew how Rita was going to look. She sauntered on the stage holding her head up high, in that magnificent way she does, stepping along like a sleek young tiger cub and the whistles that sounded would have shamed a canary’s convention. She enjoyed every second of it. Then she did that elaborate difficult ‘Mame’ number in two takes.

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Conference

Conference

1945. There seems to be some amusing banter going on between Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford as Harold Clifton looks on. A caption on the...

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Conference

Conference

1945. With Virginia Van Upp delivering scripts day by day, there's little time for preparation and rehearsal so Rita Hayworth needs all the help she...

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Gilda-ing the Rita

Gilda-ing the Rita

1945. Seated in her director's chair, Rita Hayworth is prepared for her Amado Mio scene in Gilda. A caption on the back of the photo...

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A touch of the tresses

A touch of the tresses

1945. Helen Hunt, Columbia’s chief hair stylist, is one of Rita’s closest friends. She has worked with Rita since her early days at the studio....

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Finishing touches

Finishing touches

1945. That movie camera is a monster! It's almost as if Rita Hayworth is being prepared as a ritual sacrifice. But don't worry, a caption...

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Make-up test

Make-up test

1945. Rudolph Maté, exposure meter in hand, has a pretty impressive CV. He has worked on several of Carl Theodor Dreyer's films, including The Passion...

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Gilda – the two songs

An article in Modern Screen (May 1946, page 8), announces that:

Rita Hayworth turns dramatic in “Gilda.” The studio’s announcement that the glamor girl was saying goodbye to musicals brought a storm of protest from GIs all over the world. In answer to the flood of requests that Rita continue showing her legs and swinging her hips, the studio wrote two songs into the script. “Put the Blame on Mame, Boys” is a torchy lament, and “Amado Mio” comes out in the middle of a samba sequence.

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Amado Mio

Amado Mio

1945. Gilda (Rita Hayworth) performs Amado Mio at a nightclub in Montevideo.

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Put the Blame on Mame

Put the Blame on Mame

1945. Rita sings Put the Blame on Mame on screen, but behind the scenes her voice is dubbed by Anita Ellis. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

DANCE, LITTLE LADY – Rita Hayworth, although she plays a dramatic role in Columbia’s “Gilda,” takes time out from histrionics to do a torrid dance specialty to the tune of “Put the Blame on Mame, Boys.”

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Put the Blame on Mame

Put the Blame on Mame

1945. Gilda (Rita Hayworth) performs her infamous striptease at the casino.

And it’s true – the songs are in fact retrofitted, not integral to the movie from the outset. It’s another example of the apparently chaotic way in which the film is put together. Both songs are written by Doris Fisher and Allan Roberts, whose work will be recorded by a string of stars including Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Marilyn Monroe. According to Doris Fisher:

Though we weren’t supposed to work yet, they gave us a script the next day, told us they wanted a couple of songs and where they wanted them to come. At about 3 a.m. we went into a publisher’s office on Vine Street since we had no office of our own, sat down by a piano and, I don’t know, it just happened. Al came up with that title Put the Blame on Mame because of the script. We’d already been playing around with that feeling for a song so it just worked. We wrote that in a couple of hours. A day or two later we wrote Amado Mio because we had to have something with a South American flavour there. We had no idea where it was going to be, how it was going to be done or what it would look like. We only wrote those two songs. Then they had to shoot those scenes after the film was finished and inject them into the story.

Gilda – Rita’s wardrobe

Columbia certainly goes to town on Rita’s wardrobe, designed by Jean Louis, Columbia’s head of costume. According to the article in Modern Screen:

The star wears twenty-nine different outfits in the picture, including a chinchilla evening wrap worth $65,000 and a sleeveless ermine cloak, valued at S35,000…

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Publicity shot for Gilda

Publicity shot for Gilda

1945. Portrait of Rita Hayworth by Robert Coburn.

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Publicity shot for Gilda

Publicity shot for Gilda

1945. Portrait of Rita Hayworth by Robert Coburn.

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Publicity shot for Gilda

Publicity shot for Gilda

1945. Portrait of Rita Hayworth by Robert Coburn.

However, the pièce de résistance is the iconic strapless satin dress Gilda wears when she sashays with alluring abandon across the casino floor as she performs Put the Blame on Mame. Reputedly inspired by John Singer Sargent’s portrait of Madam X, it is designed to accentuate Rita’s fuller figure – she has recently given birth to her daughter, Rebecca. According to Jean Louis:

It was the most famous dress I ever made. Everybody wonders how that dress can stay on her while she sings and dances… well, inside there was a harness like you put on a horse. We put grosgrain under the bust with darts and three stays, one in the centre, two on the sides. Then we moulded plastic softened over a gas flame and shaped around the top of the dress. No matter how she moved, the dress did not fall down.

Gilda leans casually against the stair-rail in Ballin's mansion
1945. Gilda leans casually against the stair-rail in Ballin’s mansion. Photo by Eddie Cronenweth. Read more.

Gilda – Rita Hayworth, the making of a bombshell

The first woman to be known as a bombshell was Jean Harlow, who was nicknamed the “blonde bombshell” for her 1931 film Platinum Blonde. With her role as Gilda, and particularly the Put the Blame on Mame sequence, Rita ends up giving the term a whole new meaning.

In 1946, atomic scientists on the Bikini Atoll name the first atomic bomb to be detonated in peacetime “Gilda” and paint Rita’s picture on it. According to her then husband, Orson Welles, she’s furious.

Rita used to fly into terrible rages all the time, but the angriest was when she found out that they’d put her on the atom bomb. Rita almost went insane, she was so angry. She was so shocked by it! Rita was the kind of person that kind of thing would hurt more than anybody. She wanted to go to Washington to hold a press conference, but Harry Cohn wouldn’t let her because it would be unpatriotic.

More likely, Harry is delighted with the publicity for his movie.

Gilda – behind-the-scenes shenanigans

The year of Gilda’s release, some of the main personalities involved in its production are entangled in a nasty lawsuit. Charles Vidor, the movie’s Hungarian-born director who has already worked with Rita on Cover Girl, in attempt to extricate himself from his contract, sues Harry Cohn, president and production director of Columbia Pictures Corporation, on the grounds of, among other things, “abusive language.” According to Bob Thomas’ book King Cohn, he also claims that during the making of Gilda Cohn accused him of using too much film, quitting early, and shooting excessive retakes.

I told Mr. Cohn that the delays were due to the fact that Miss Hayworth got tired at five o’clock in the afternoon and was unable to give her best performances. I also told him that his abuse was upsetting me, that I could not sleep, that I had to have doctors give me injections, and that I was nervous.

Witnesses for the defence then testify that Cohn was not the only person using abusive language – Vidor was just as bad, especially when it came to dealing with “the little people on the set.” Vidor loses his case and remains at Columbia, for whom he will direct Glenn and Rita in The Loves of Carmen (1948).

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Exit Rita

Exit Rita

1945. The dress might be glamorous but behind the scenes things are much more functional. Rita does look a bit suspicious so has the photographer...

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Goin' places

Goin’ places

1945. Not surprisingly, Columbia issued a string of fashion shots to publicise Cover Girl, one of their previous Rita Hayworth vehicles. Here's one for Gilda....

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Tipping the scale

Tipping the scale

1945. That's a pretty impressive mobile weighing machine that Rita's perched on. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

TIPPING THE SCALE –...

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Preview

Preview

1945. In costume for the carnival scene, you'll recognise Glenn and Rita but perhaps not the man between them. He's Joe Sawyer, who plays the...

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Harry Cohn is known for his autocratic and intimidating management style (not unusual for Hollywood studio moguls of the 1940s). But he could also be a good wind-up and, according to Glenn Ford:

When I went into Gilda, Rita was finished with Orson, and we gave Harry Cohn a few grey hairs. We were told by the sound department that Harry had had a microphone planted in my dressing room. That was kind of interesting. He was worried about my carrying on with Rita, so we gave him some marvellous things to listen to.”

Gilda gets into the car with Johnny
Gilda teases Johnny. Photo by Eddie Cronenweth. Read more.

Cohn is furious, but Rita is amused by his reaction. While she entertains Glenn in her dressing room after the day’s shooting, Cohn phones down every 15 minutes. “What the hell are you doing down there?” he shouts. “Just having a drink,” says Ford. “Why don’t you go home? I can’t keep the studio open all hours of the night. It costs money. Now get the hell out and don’t forget to shut off the lights when you leave.”

Enjoying Cohn’s exasperation, Glenn and Rita settle down for another drink. In fact, they’re great friends, having previously worked together on The Lady in Question (1940). And on the set of Gilda:

Rita and I were very fond of one another, we became very close friends and I guess it all came out on the screen. Honestly speaking, I’m sure we all sensed something going on there, there was an excitement on the set. Mr Vidor was a very strict, demanding director who had a streak of sadistic, Hungarian, love-hate understanding and he sort of nurtured that aspect. His instructions before we did a scene, on how we were to think and do it, were pretty incredible, even in today’s market. I can’t repeat the things he used to tell us to think about. They are marvelous images to hold…

Glenn will later admit to having had an affair with Rita, though as a man of discretion he will never give any details.

Gilda – dark undercurrents and the influence of the Hay’s Code

The themes at the heart of Gilda are uncomfortable and, to a 1940s audience, subversive to boot.

1945. Gilda gets help from a couple of members of the audience. Photo by Eddie Cronenweth. Read more.

The relationships between Gilda and her two ‘lovers’ are at best perverse, at worst sado-masochistic. Ballin observes: “Hate can be a very exciting emotion. There’s a heat in it you can feel. Hate is the only thing that warms me.” In a later scene, Gilda reprises the theme: “Hate is a very exciting emotion, haven’t you noticed? Very exciting. I hate you too, Johny. I hate you so much I think I’m going to die from it.” There’s a rapture, an intensity about Gilda’s feelings for Johnny: “I have to keep talking, Johnny, as long as I have my arms about you, or else I might forget to dance. Push my hat back, Johnny.”

When Gilda performs Put the Blame on Mame, she is not simply provoking both Johnny and Ballin with her open sexuality, she is also crying out in pain for the love she’s being denied. She is both powerful and vulnerable. For Gilda, love and hate are two sides of the same coin.

But the real love affair is between Ballin and Johnny. Upon hearing of this interpretation, Charles Vidor reportedly said, “Really? I never had any idea those boys were supposed to be like that!” Glenn Ford acknowledged the gay subtext, “But it never occurred to us at the time we were filming.”

But hey… what is Ballin doing late at night down by the docks where he rescues Johnny other than cruising? And the relationship that develops between the two men is much too cosy to be just about business.

Which makes Gilda herself into an especially tragic figure, trapped between two profoundly misogynistic ‘lovers’. It also makes a mockery of the ending – it is inconceivable that Johnny and Gilda will simply forget the bitter nastiness of their relationship, let alone live happily ever after.

Mini lobby card promoting Gilda
1946. Mini lobby card issued to movie theatres as publicity for Gilda. Photo by Robert Coburn. Read more.

A convincing ending would have hatred and tragedy win out but that wasn’t possible because of the Motion Picture Production Code. Coming into force in 1930, the Hays Code (as it came to be known) introduced film censorship to the US by laying down a series of guidelines based on three general principles:

  • No picture shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin.
  • Correct standards of life, subject only to the requirements of drama and entertainment, shall be presented.
  • Law, natural or human, shall not be ridiculed, nor shall sympathy be created for its violation.

No wonder Bosley Crowther in his New York Times review, observes:

This reviewer was utterly baffled by what happened on the screen. To our average register of reasoning, it simply did not make sense. It seems that a fantastic female, the pivotal character in this film, turns up in a Buenos Aires casino as the wife of the dour proprietor. But it also seems that she was previously the sweetie of a caustic young man who is quite a hand at gambling and is employed by this same proprietor. For reasons which are guardedly suggested, she taunts and torments this tough lad until, by a twist of circumstances, her husband is suddenly removed. Then she marries the laddie but continues to fight with him because of some curious disposition which is never properly explained. In the end, after certain vagrant incidents, they are reconciled—but don’t ask us why.

Colour portrait of Rita Hayworth as Gilda
1945. A rare colour portrait of Rita Hayworth by Robert Coburn. Read more.

But let’s end on a more positive note with a couple of reviews that recognize different aspects of Gilda’s greatness. The first is by Ruth Waterbury for the Los Angeles Examiner:

When Judy Garland and Alice Faye got the urge for drama, they went the whole way and in their pictures The Clock [1945] and Fallen Angel [1945], respectively, they handed out the acting straight, without so much as a jazz note or a single twinkle of a toe, to highlight in. Rita Hayworth, going heavily dramatic for the first time in Gilda, proves herself a smarter show woman. For how this glorious pinup does emote in this one! What a glittering gamut of drama she reveals, plus much of her beautiful self while also singing and dancing! The result is an exciting, glamorous, rich, ruddy melodrama – and if the plot is most incredible at times, you will be more than willing to ignore it while concentrating on its star.

And this is from Charles Higham’s Hollywood in the Forties:

This is a film with the intense surrealist qualities of a dream. Its Buenos Aires is a creation totally of the imagination, with its winding dark streets, its gambling hell, Mundson’s white glittering house. The ambience is one of heat, decadence, sexual ferocity barely concealed behind civilized gestures and phrases. Maté’s photography has a lacquered finish: the husband smoking a cigarette in silhouette, the first glimpse of Gilda, like every GI’s dream, sitting on a bed and throwing back her head in ecstasy, the wedding scene glimpsed through windows streaming with rain.

Want to know more?

Tim Dirks’ Filmsite is a great place to start, with a great introduction and a detailed synopsis of the plot. A primary source for this article is John Kobal’s biography, Rita Hayworth: The Time the Place and the Woman. Turner Classic Movies has some excellent articles about the movie but these appear to be available only in the US, while the 1946 issues of Screenland are worth looking at for contemporary coverage. The Jean Louis quote about that dress is sourced from Gilda: Rita Hayworth as Gilda Farrell. Conelrad Adjacent’s extensive investigation, Atomic Goddess: Rita Hayworth and the Legend of the Bikini Bombshell is a fascinating read for anyone interested in the topic. And there’s also Caren Roberts-Frenzel’s beautifully illustrated Rita Hayworth: A Photographic Retrospective.

Other topics you may be interested in…

Hollywood stars announce Japan’s surrender
Jane Greer during her early-Hollywood days
Jane Greer – the queen of film noir
The Lady from Shanghai – the weirdest great movie ever made

Filed Under: Behind the scenes, Films, Stars Tagged With: Allan Roberts, Charles Vidor, Doris Fisher, Gilda, Glenn Ford, Harry Cohn, Jean Louis, Rita Hayworth, Rudolph Maté, Virginia Van Upp

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