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The Lady from Shanghai

The Lady from Shanghai

Mystery · Crime · Thriller · 1947

A romantic drifter gets caught between a corrupt tycoon and his voluptuous wife.

Movie details

The Lady from Shanghai

“I told you... you know nothing about wickedness”

1947 Mystery · Crime · Thriller 1h 27m

Critical arithmetic

One number, for now.

TMDB

7.3 / 10

Community rating

A romantic drifter gets caught between a corrupt tycoon and his voluptuous wife.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over The Lady from Shanghai?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

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Johnny Truelove likes to see himself as tough. He's the son of an underworld figure and a drug dealer. Johnny also likes to get tough when things don't go his way. When Jake Mazursky fails to pay up for Johnny, things get worse for the Mazursky family, as Johnny and his 'gang' kidnap Jake's 15 year old brother and hold him hostage.

A Most Violent Year

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A thriller set in New York City during the winter of 1981, statistically one of the most violent years in the city's history, and centered on the lives of an immigrant and his family trying to expand their business and capitalize on opportunities as the rampant violence, decay, and corruption of the day drag them in and threaten to destroy all they have built.

A Perfect Murder

A Perfect Murder

Crime · 1998

Millionaire industrialist Steven Taylor is a man who has everything but what he craves most: the love and fidelity of his wife. A hugely successful player in the New York financial world, he considers her to be his most treasured acquisition. But she needs more than simply the role of dazzling accessory.

The Man Who Wasn't There

The Man Who Wasn't There

Crime · 2001

A tale of murder, crime and punishment set in the summer of 1949. Ed Crane, a barber in a small California town, is dissatisfied with his life, but his wife Doris' infidelity and a mysterious opportunity presents him with a chance to change it.

The Unforgivable

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Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

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Crime · 1956

A newspaper publisher, wanting to prove a point about the insufficiency of circumstantial evidence, talks his possible son-in-law Tom into a hoax in an attempt to expose ineptitude of the city's hard-line district attorney. The plan is to have Tom plant clues leading to his arrest for killing a female nightclub dancer. Once Tom is found guilty, he is to reveal the setup and humiliate the DA.

Chloe

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Drama · 2010

Catherine and David Stewart are a well-to-do couple living in a posh area of Toronto, but all is not well in paradise. Catherine suspects that David is cheating on her, so she hires an escort named Chloe to meet David and see if he gives in to temptation — but events spin out of control when Chloe spills the details of her torrid encounters.

Where it lives

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Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Orson Welles

Written by

Orson Welles

Rita Hayworth

Rita Hayworth

Elsa Bannister

Orson Welles

Orson Welles

Michael O'Hara

Everett Sloane

Everett Sloane

Arthur Bannister

Glenn Anders

Glenn Anders

George Grisby

Ted de Corsia

Ted de Corsia

Sidney Broome

Erskine Sanford

Erskine Sanford

Judge

Gus Schilling

Gus Schilling

Goldfish

Court is in session

Put The Lady from Shanghai on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Auteur Devotee

“Form is the argument.”

Every composed frame and deliberate cut is evidence that control can be thrilling in its own right.

The prosecution The Popcorn Loyalist

“Technique in search of a pulse.”

Immaculate construction is still construction. The film may be too busy proving its craft to feel alive.