orson welles manage to knock me on my as with every picture of his i see . lady of shanghai be on the same level a his other masterpiece and the magnificent ambersons and touch of evil and the trial and and chime at midnight . the plot can tend to be confuse sometimes and and sometimes it seem to be move maybe a tiny bit too fast ( about an hour of it be edit out when test screening go poorly ) . it doesn not matter and however . you can not watch welles film and manage to concentrate too much on the plot . his direction define what great direction be . almost any scene from this film can hold up with any other scene he direct . check out the courtroom scene . usually they be such stock scene that i can not stand them . case in point and try to sit through welles own speech near the end of compulsion . in lady from shanghai and just pay attention to the level of detail in that courtroom scene . watch that juror who be always sneeze and interrupt the proceeding . or just take a look at the lighting in that scene . i know and it be just a simple venetian blind and and that it be use constantly in film noirs and crime film of the era and but well give it a beauty all it own . the dialogue be also remarkable . welles have the skill and a skill that no one else seem to have and to make a crime film contain example of the grand poetry . whether he be speak shakespeare or spit out hard boil line and it have the power to stir the soul . positive .