Capital Celluloid 2013 - Day 292: Sat Oct 19

The Lady From Shanghai (Welles, 1947): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 6.30pm


57th LONDON FILM FESTIVAL (9-20 October 2013) DAY 11

Every day (from October 9 to October 20) I will be selecting the London Film Festival choices you have a chance to get tickets for and the movies you are unlikely to see in London very soon unless you go to see them at the Festival. Here is the LFF's main website for the general information you need. Don't worry if some of the recommended films are sold out by the time you read this as there are always some tickets on offer which go on sale 30 minutes before each screening. Here is the information you need to get those standby tickets.

I have written a feature about the drama both on and off the screen involving this brilliant movie here at the Guardian Film website.

Chicago Reader review:
The weirdest great movie ever made (1948), which is somehow always summed up for me by the image of Glenn Anders cackling "Target practice! Target practice!" with unbalanced, malignant glee. Orson Welles directs and stars as an innocent Irish sailor who's drafted into a bizarre plot involving crippled criminal lawyer Everett Sloane and his icily seductive wife Rita Hayworth. Hayworth tells Welles he "knows nothing about wickedness" and proceeds to teach him, though he's an imperfect student. The film moves between Candide-like farce and a deeply disturbing apprehension of a world in grotesque, irreversible decay—it's the only true film noir comedy. The script, adapted from a novel by Sherwood King, is credited solely to Welles, but it's the work of many hands, including Welles, William Castle, Charles Lederer, and Fletcher Markle.
Dave Kehr

This film also screens on 16th October at Vue 7. Details here.

Here (and above) is the trailer.

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