Showing posts with label Rita Hayworth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rita Hayworth. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 17, 2021

Picture Perfect Snow Day

It's a winter wonderland here at Shades of Gray on this Picture Perfect Wednesday.



We've been making snowmen and sledding...

Rita Hayworth made a snowman










... and some of us went skiing and made new friends!

Scene from "Ski Party" (1965)


But the ski trip wasn't without problems. Some of us forgot our jackets...



... some of us forgot our pants...



... and we're lucky that Yvonne Craig remembered to bring even her ski boots!

Yvonne Craig







Wednesday, February 28, 2018

'The Lady from Shanghai' is a beautiful mess

The Lady from Shanghai (1947)
Starring: Orson Welles, Rita Hayworth, Everett Sloane, and Glenn Anders
Director: Non-Credited [Orson Welles]
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

A chance encounter with Elsa (Hayworth), the younger wife of a famed trail attorney (Sloane), ends up drawing an independent-minded sailor (Welles) into a web of jealousy, hatred, and murder.


"The Lady from Shanghai" is, like every Orson Welles-directed film beautifully shot and visually ahead of its time. It is also features a cast that is perfect for their roles, with Rita Hayworth, as the title character, and Glenn Anders, as a creepy lawyer, being particularly excellent. Unfortunately, the fine performances and brilliant visuals are undermined by a plot-line that's jumbled and haphazard and which leaves the characters underdeveloped and just a little too mysterious. Hayworth's character in particular could have done with a little more background exposition.

Film historians (including Peter Bogdanovich in the documentary included on the version of the DVD I watched) say that Welles cut of the film was almost an hour longer than what was ultimately released by Columbia Pictures. While I think two-and-half hours might have been a big much run-time wise, I also wish the studio hadn't been quite so aggressive with their chopping. I can't help but wonder if some of the character actions would have made more sense if we what we've been with hadn't been a little closer to what Welles' had intended. (He was so unhappy with the final product that he had his director credit left off--even if it was the score and the sound work in general he the most upset about.)


Tuesday, July 4, 2017