4. Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993) The Lady From Shanghai (1947)
The hall of mirrors is a staple of fairgrounds across the world, but its also been used in the finale of more than a few movies down the years. A classic, blatant rip-off occurred in the 1974 Roger Moore Bond movie, The Man with the Golden Gun, which saw 007 play cat and mouse with Christopher Lees Scaramanga in a finale that was straight out of Bruce Lees Enter the Dragon the previous year. Possibly Bond producer Cubby Broccoli underestimated how many people would see Lees martial arts masterpiece. Not so Woody Allen, who like Robert Altman with The Player gave a clear point of reference to his source material, when using mirrors at the end of his 1993 comedy, Manhattan Murder Mystery. In Allens case, he went back to the daddy of them all, another Orson Welles classic: The Lady from Shanghai, which reaches its conclusion inside, yes youve guessed it, a hall of mirrors. Just to make sure viewers could be in no doubt where Allen took his inspiration from: The Lady From Shanghai can be seen projected through a cinema screen, across all the mirrors in the scene.
