Orson Welles turned amediocre novel into a brilliant film by overturning all the expectationsof the crime thriller. Although the film remains an absorbingintrigue-the story of a murder plan that unfolds as a yacht makes itsluxurious way along the Pacific-every scene is a showcase for Welles'cinematic inventiveness and the whole adds up to a significant statementon the evils of money lust. Welles pulled a coup by casting himself as atotally sympathetic character, an Irish sailor with humanitarianpolitics, a veteran of the Spanish Civil War who becomes a pawn in thegame of the greedy rich. Then he took the Hollywood heroine, in the formof Rita Hayworth, and systematically destroyed the aura of glamorsurrounding her, portraying instead a web of avarice. The film's bravuramoments resonate beyond pyrotechnics, especially the magnificentsequences of reflexive cinema in the macabre Hall of Mirrors scene andthe confession of love in a "fishbowl" (the San Francisco Aquarium).