Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Announces The 4K Ultra HD Release Of Director Orson Welles' The Lady From Shanghai For Delivery On July 23

It’s film noir time!   

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment on July 23 will be delivering a 4K restoration (from the original camera negative) of auteur filmmaker Orson Welles’ April of 1948 film release of The Lady From Shanghai (based on Sherwood King’s 1938 novel “If I Die Before I Wake”), starring Rita Hayworth, Orson Welles and a number of his Mercury Theatre players.

The production of the film is perhaps as interesting as the movie itself.   Filmed after the war in 1946 in Acapulco, Mexico, San Francisco and Sausalito (as well as Columbia’s domestic studio sets), the assistant cameraman died on location in Mexico of a heart attack (Donald “Ray” Cory) and Welles and Hayworth would end up going through a messy divorce during the film’s post production (she was not his first choice for the lead, but she was the studio’s darling at the time … so Rita Hayworth it was).

And to add to the tensions, Welles and then studio head, Harry Cohn, were on the outs with Cohn taking over the editing decisions for the film’s theatrical release (which was delayed for well over a year).

Also of note, the yacht used in the film, Zaca, was owned by Errol Flynn, who actually skippered it during the film’s production.

In the end, The Lady From Shanghai is pure film noir, with an illicit love affair with a femme fatale, murder, double-dealing, a frame job (with the lawyer doing the framing) and the amazing “Hall of Mirrors” climatic ending.   With new the 4K film restoration the glorious black and white cinematography should absolutely pop.

Bonus features include an archived commentary featuring fellow auteur filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich and the vintage featurette titled “A Conversation with Peter Bogdanovich.”