RITA HAYWORTH | THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI (1947) Exquisite portrait

[Los Angeles: Columbia Pictures, 1947]. Vintage original 8 x 10″ (20 x 25 cm.) black-and-white glossy silver gelatin photo. Attached paper credits blurb with photography credits to Ned Scott and collection stamps inked out on verso. One smudge at mid-bottom blank white margin, near fine.

Rita Hayworth is as smoldering as her lit cigarette in this character-defining portrait from the noir story in which she played the ultimate femme fatale. Husband-at-the-time and director Orson Welles notoriously had her luxurious red tresses cropped and dyed platinum blonde, perhaps to obscure her popular image at the time. Whatever the psychology involved, it was likely as confusing as that of this complex murder-plotted story.