With: Rita Hayworth (Elsa Bannister), Orson Welles (Michael O’Hara), Everett Sloane (Arthur Bannister), Glenn Anders (George Grisby), Ted De Corsia (Sudney Broome), Erskine Sanford (judge), Gus Schilling (Goldie), Carl Frank (DA Galloway), Louis Merrill (Jake Bjornsen), Evelyn Ellis (Bessie), Harry Shannon (cab driver)
Director/Producer: Orson Welles
Production co: Columbia
Screenplay: Orson Welles. Based on a novel by Sherwood King
Photography: Charles Lawton Jr
Editor: Viola Lawrence
Music: Heinz Roemheld
REVIEWS
​
In this insanely lurid film noir, director Orson Welles – still lush and handsome – plays an Irish sailor ensnared by a siren-like Rita Hayworth when he signs up to navigate the yacht of her crippled husband, ‘the greatest criminal trial lawyer in the world’.  Thanks to studio interference, the plot is borderline incomprehensible, but the film’s baroque visual style, its hard-boiled dialogue, and its coterie of sleazy ocean cruisers add up to something weirdly coherent.  A fabulous new restoration gives us the perfect excuse to clamber aboard and gape.

“A glittering film noir! Everett Sloane is an entertainingly outré villain – a two-legged tarantula on crutches – and there are several bold, flashy set pieces in San Francisco, including a chase through a Chinatown theater, a love scene at the aquarium in Golden Gate Park, and a fun-house shoot-out… In the title role, Rita Hayworth [the soon to be ex-Mrs Welles], her hair colored platinum, has both bathing-beauty allure and an exciting sadistic streak – there’s a stiletto hidden in the cheesecake.”

— Michael Sragow, New Yorker

Restoration by Sony Pictures Entertainment
FILM SOCIETY SCREENINGS

Wellington
Monday, 12 March, 6:15pm

Auckland
Monday, 19 March, 6:30pm

Canterbury
Monday, 26 March, 7:30pm

Hamilton
Monday, 30 April, 8:00pm

Dunedin
Wednesday, 16 May, 7:30pm

Palmerston North
Monday, 4 June, 6:00pm
​
Tauranga
Wednesday, 4 July, 6:15pm
​
Whanganui
Monday, 20 August, 7:00pm
For more Rita Hayworth, see also:
RITA!  >>
Only Angels Have Wings >>