Strapped for cash, Orson Welles made a spur-of-the-moment deal with Columbia Pictures honcho Harry Cohn to direct and star - alongside Welles' wife at the time, Rita Hayworth - in an adaptation of a pulp novel. As you would expect with Welles, he turns the story of a convoluted murder plot into something of much greater import than the novel presupposes. The hall-of-mirrors climax of this film is rightly celebrated as one of the greatest moments in all of Hollywood cinema.