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“There never was a woman like Gilda!” drooled the posters – and no, there probably wasn’t.

Rita Hayworth’s nightclub queen is at once seductive and innocent, a mix of virgin and whore – the perfect male fantasy.

Her striptease scene is erotic to the max – but all she peels off are those long black gloves.

No wonder club manager Glenn Ford is obsessed, as is club owner George Macready, her arrival disrupting their borderline gay relationship.

Hothouse passions were rarely steamier than in Charles Vidor’s 1946 thriller, and the close-knit triangle set-up plays itself out in classic noir style.