I like this film a lot more than when I first saw it - does that mean I'm getting more high brow or that I'm caving into auteurist pressure?Maybe the more films you see the more you appreciate Orson Welles' originality. Or when you re-view the movie you worry less about its' flaws (a slightly messy narrative, Welles' irritating Irish brogue, the unconvincing scenes of Welles throwing a punch) and concentrate on the positives.
There are many of these things: the beauty of Rita Hayworth (she was better looking with darker hair but she's still pretty good here, especially in her various skimpy outfits in the yacht - her acting's not bad either, not great but effective especially in the finale), the glorious support performances of Glenn Anders (strangling those words, baroque horror) and Everett Sloane, the glorious visuals, the rumbunctiousness of the courtroom scene, the location filming in Mexico and San Francisco, the Chinese Opera), and most of all the incredible shoot out in the Hall of mirrors.
The film was tampered with by other hands in post production, but not destroyed, just swarped a bit. It's definitely a Welles movie - I always imagine that yacht (Errol Flynn's in real life) mooring off the coast where Citizen Kane has his picnic. The yachting sequence at the beginning of the film goes on a bit too long, and the plot is a bit rushed. But intoxicating filmmaking.
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