Alongside Orson Welles (Citizen Kane, Touch of Evil and F for Fake) was Rita Hayworth (Gilda and Cover Girl ), Everett Sloane (Citizen Kane, Somebody Up Their Likes Me and Lust for Life) and Glen Anders (Sally of the Saw Dust). Beware spoilers ahead.
The film begins with a narration by Michael O'Hara (Welles) and then appears on screen saving Elsa Bannister (Hayworth) from a group of thugs, O'Hara being a big tough Irishman dispatches with quickly, he quickly shows interest in Elsa but discovers she's married to a suspicious lawyer named Arthur Bannister (Sloane), she manages to talk Arthur into giving Michael a job on their cruise across south america to San Francisco. On this cruise Michael and Elsa become closer and Arthur grows more suspicious. Shortly after the cruise Michael is approached by George Grisby (Anders), he's Arthur's business partner and he offers O'Hara $5000 to help him fake his death. O'Hara accepts Grisby's offer but instead gets framed for Grisby's actual murder and he is sent court knowing the only way to prove his innocence is to find the actual gun that killed Grisby and who it belonged to.
At the court case O'Hara cleverly tries to attempt to commit suicide using sleeping pills, but it was a ploy to escape and meet up with Elsa in China town. Michael finds Elsa but pulls a gun from her bag and accuses her of killing Grisby and planning everything, she confesses but Michael passes out due to accidentally swallowing too many sleeping pills.
Elsa takes Michael to an abandoned theme park, he wakes up in a house of mirrors and meets Elsa, then they are both joined by Arthur, the unhappily married couple point guns each other and a shoot out ensues. All of the reflections are shattered and both Arthur and Elsa are shot, Arthur dies and Elsa lies on the floor pleading to Michael to save her but instead he walks away knowing his life will be better without her and he realises that he was the most honest out of all of them.
The first half of the movies is a mine field of issues, first off the cinematography and editing is shocking. The opening scenes are all tracking shots there's barely any scenes where the camera is in a static position and all of the shots are edited in a choppy and unrhythmic style that makes it difficult to actually watch, luckily both issues gradually improve as the film progresses and eventually becomes unnoticeable.
The acting through the movie is very unnatural and doesn't flow well, this is saved by the well written dialogue. The fault lies with the actors which is surprising due to the amounts famous names in this film, but you can take it one step further and blame Orson Welles the director of the film knowing that he could have done a better job and a better Irish accent to boot.
All of the settings in this film were very vibrant and alive, in almost every shot there was something going behind the characters showing the viewers that there is a world moving around them and they aren't the only ones in it. There were various different locations in this film like New York, Cuba, The West Indies and San Francisco.In this film there are minor elements that make the first half poor, especially random scenes like Elsa sitting on the side of the yacht holding a dog that's never been in the movie or even mentioned and will never be again. Also the large amount of oriental racial stereotyping, I know it was 1947 but by today's standards the movie could probably get taken to court. What really disappointed me with the whole of the movie was that some scenes were shot brilliantly then the next scene would look like they threw it together in fifteen minutes, alot of this was down to Orson Welles being pressured by the studio and budget issues.
The only character development seen in this film is mostly between Michael O'Hara and Elsa Bannister, they both start out as bland simple characters but morph into something bigger and more complex. O'Hara began as a simple Irish brawler but becomes the unlikely hero and cagey detective and Elsa goes from being a classic damsel in distress to the person who manipulated the entire movie from the first scene, but what maker character unique was she still actually loved Michael and just let her resentment for her husband. Arthur's character maintained the classic evil husband role but he was presented as the most powerful character in the film and commanded alot of presence when he was in a scene. Last of all the character I think actually stole the show, George Grisby was a person I loved to hate. He was the most interesting person to watch when he was in front of the camera, even though he was a pawn in the master plan, for a while he had me believing he was the master of said plan.
The defining change in this movie for me was when they got off the yacht, before that I was slowly getting tired of all the mistakes and wooden acting, but the real story began to reveal itself and the quality of acting, cinematography and editing gradually improved. My favourite scene in the movie is the court case, everything you want happens in that one scene, amazing tension is built between Elsa, Michael and Arthur, there were some funny jury members that kept sneezing and interrupting the judge and lawyers and it also reveal the affair between Elsa and Michael to Arthur and that moment is the metaphorical breaking point leading to the climatic end of the movie .
This movie is a tale of two kinds of people colliding, you have the strong independent people and there are people who are so stupidly rich that its all they care about, this movie also shows that people that strong independent people have the endurance to keep moving forward yet the other break under the pressure, thus why O'Hara walked out alive and Elsa, Arthur and Grisby did not.
Orson Welles is known for his masterpieces and being the first real Auteur director, but this movie is not one his finest but it still a good film you just need to tough out the forty five minutes.
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