![]() ![]() It’s not hard to see why Glenn Ford’s Johnny finds himself completely beguiled by her: (Fortunately, the script gives her plenty of innuendo to work with.) Cinematographer Rudolf Maté shoots her first scene like a magazine glamour shot, all soft-focus and smoke billowing towards the camera. Orson Welles was one of the most ridiculously photogenic women in Hollywood history. The film does have its moments, however, most of them involving Rita Hayworth. This sense is often lacking in Gilda, whose second act gets bogged down in repetitive, dialogue-heavy scenes: take a drink every time the titular character is described as “superstitious” or she and Farrell mention their love-hate relationship. To me, film noir is all about urgency, about immersing the viewer in a maze where danger lurks around every corner. ![]() Stylistically, it’s a not-exactly-successful fusion of film noir and glossy Hollywood romance, something that seems a bit antithetical to the former genre. The bad first: the languidly-paced film is a good fifteen or twenty minutes too long and thus drags at times. My Thoughts: Gilda, like many films past and present, is a bit of a mixed bag. The three become points in a deadly love triangle, complicated by escaped Nazis and Johnny and Gilda’s intense love/hatred of each other. The boss’s wife, however, is Gilda (Rita Hayworth), a ravishing beauty who used to be Johnny’s lover. Plot: Armed only with his wits and a pair of loaded dice, drifter Johnny Farrell (Glenn Ford) arrives in Argentina, where he becomes the right-hand man of an illegal casino boss. Gilda, Hayworth’s first foray into noir, remains her most iconic performance. As one of her era’s preeminent sex symbols, it was inevitable that she would be cast as a film noir femme fatale. George Macready’s performance here reminded me very much of Erich von Stroheim’s performance in “As You Desire Me”, with Greta Garbo.Īll in all, I highly recommend you to watch “Gilda”, not just because it is one of the most famous old films in Hollywood, but also because it is a very interesting and a very good production, directed by the gifted Charles Vidor, who also directed other two great films with Rita Hayworth, and that I recommend as well: “Cover Girl” and “The Loves of Carmen”(a production of Rita Hayworth’s own company).Background: Born Margarita Carmen Cansino, Rita Hayworth achieved ’40s superstardom as both a pinup girl and Columbia Pictures’ biggest star she was one of Hollywood’s biggest box office draws in 1946. I might as well mention the sinister character Ballin Mundson, the owner of the casino in South America and Gilda’s husband. She also wears for this scene the splendid black strapless dress, designed by Jean Louis. It was a decent, but typical striptease scene – maybe the most famous in the history of classic movies. You will get to see some wonderful musical numbers of Rita Hayworth but the most discussed of all is the controversial “Put the Blame on Mame”, where Rita is stripping off one of her gloves while dancing and singing in a very sexy way. The iconic and ethereal character of the film, who is also the star who dominates the entire plot, is the one and only Gilda. The characters come to life so realistically, that one might be tempted to believe that the gambler and, later, the casino manager Johnny Farrell (Glenn Ford) exists in real life, too. Moreover, this film established a successful partnership between Rita and Glenn Ford, with whom she appeared in other four motion pictures. The character she played here was considered, at its time, the definitive femme fatale, and many people have seen a perfect resemblance between Rita and Gilda. One of the most appreciated and talked-about films noirs in history, Gilda (1946) became the best known film in Rita Hayworth’s career.
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