Lady From Shanghai, The

After being fired from RKO with his reputation tarnished by Hearst's destructive campaign to bury CITIZEN KANE, Orson Welles was down for the count when Columbia Pictures studio chief Harry Cohn decided to take a chance on him by green-lighting what would become a film noir classic. LADY FROM SHANGHAI stars one of the biggest movie stars and a Columbia favorite, Rita Hayworth, who was easily sold on the project since Welles was her real life husband at the time. The film follows Hayworth as the femme fatale who baits an Irish seaman (Welles) into a dangerous, tangled web of lies, deceit and murder. The climactic "hall of mirrors" sequence is among the most spellbinding scenes in cinematic history. Although the film was subsequently misunderstood by audiences and critics of the time (Hayworth's radically altered look - short platinum blonde hair - shocked movie-goers), it is now considered a masterpiece of the film noir genre.