“The original 155-minute version may have been a masterpiece, but this truncated noir narrowly misses the mark. The plot’s pleasingly convoluted, the performances amusingly varied, the mood sinisterly sustained. […] Even in its chopped-up form and with Welles’ Irish accent set to ‘John Wayne-in-The-Quiet Man’, there’s still plenty to like about Welles’ moody noir flick. The final scene remains a classic outro.” David Parkinson: The Lady From Shanghai Review. In: Empire, 16. Juli 2014.
“The Lady From Shanghai […] could have been a terrific piece of melodramatic romance. […] Everett Sloane is electrified with sharpness and malignance as the lawyer and husband, and Glenn Anders is exquisitely disturbing as the indefinite lunatic. Even Rita Hayworth […] is entirely adequate to the requirement of looking ravishing and acting vague. […] As producer of the picture, Mr. Welles might better have fired himself – as author, that is – and hired somebody to give Mr. Welles, director, a better script. […] Mr. Welles simply hasn’t the capacity to cut a romantic swath. And when he adorns his characterization with a poetic air and an Irish brogue, which is painfully artificial, he makes himself – and the film – ridiculous.”Bosley Crowther: Orson Welles Production, ‘The Lady From Shanghai,’ Bows at Loew’s Criterion. In: The New York Times, 10. Juni 1948.
“There’s such outrageous brilliance […]. There are some opaque plot tangles, perhaps due to 60 minutes being cut from Welles’s original version by the studio, but the sheer brio and style make it a thing of wonder.” Peter Bradshaw: The Lady from Shanghai review – outrageous and dreamlike. In: The Guardian, 24. Juli 2014.
tvguide.com
“The most amazing visual effect is the climactic Crazy House/Hall of Mirrors location, which is a wonder of surrealistic set design.”Vgl. tvguide.com
variety.com
“Script is wordy and full of holes which need the plug of taut story telling and more forthright action. […] effects, while good on their own, are distracting to the murder plot. […] Hayworth isn’t called on to do much more than look beautiful. Best break for players goes to Everett Sloane, and he gives a credible interpretation of the crippled criminal attorney.” William Brogdon: The Lady from Shanghai. In: Variety, 14. April 1948.
“The Lady from Shanghai is a piece of sleight of hand by Orson Welles. The big trick in this picture was to divert a head-on collision of at least six plots, and make of it a smooth-flowing, six-lane whodunit. Orson brings the trick off. […] The film sometimes lies limp under such feeble abracadabra, but sometimes it stands on end at a weird glimpse of real black magic. […] But not all of his magic works.” Vgl. Cinema: The New Pictures, Jun. 7, 1948 (Memento vom 1. Februar 2011 im Internet Archive). In: Time, 7. Juni 1948.
“Orson Welles […] is sometimes self-indulgent in his use of visual tricks and techniques, which at times sacrifice plot for visual brilliance, but he pulls it together in the end to produce a stunning, difficult film. Rita Hayworth gives one of her best performances as the deceptive, seductive temptress, hard-edged and cynical.” Linda Rasmussen: Die Lady von Shanghai (Memento vom 27. Mai 2016 im Internet Archive) bei AllMovie (englisch)
