Gilda (1946)

User Rating:

7.8/10   

Director:

Charles Vidor

Writers:

E.A. Ellington (story)
Marion Parsonnet (screenplay)

Release Date:

15 March 1946 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Film-Noir | Romance | Thriller

Tagline:

"I was true to one man once... and look what happened..."

Plot:

The sinister boss of a South American casino finds that his right-hand man Johnny and his sensuous new wife Gilda already know each other.

Plot Keywords:

Casino | Gambler | Argentina | Buenos Aires | Hate

Cast

Rita Hayworth	...	Gilda Mundson Farrell
Glenn Ford	...	Johnny Farrell / Narrator
George Macready	...	Ballin Mundson
Joseph Calleia	...	Det. Maurice Obregon
Steven Geray	...	Uncle Pio
Joe Sawyer	...	Casey
Gerald Mohr	...	Capt. Delgado
Mark Roberts	...	Gabe Evans (as Robert Scott)
Ludwig Donath	...	German
Donald Douglas	...	Thomas Langford (as Don Douglas)
Lionel Royce	...	German
Saul Martell	...	Little man (as S.Z. Martel)
George J. Lewis	...	Huerta
Rosa Rey	...	Maria

Runtime:

110 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Spanish | French | German

Colour:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Mirrophonic Recording)

Certification:

USA:Approved (PCA #11425) | Germany:16 | Finland:K-12 (1984) | Finland:K-16 (1947) (1959) | Argentina:13 | Australia:PG | Canada:PG (video rating) | Spain:18 | Sweden:15 | UK:PG

Company:

Columbia Pictures Corporation

Trivia:

Features prominently in The Shawshank Redemption (1994).

Goofs:

Errors in geography: At the airport scene, you can see hills in the background. In fact, the Buenos Aires' area is totally flat.

Quotes:

Johnny Farrell: Pardon me, but your husband is showing.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Sex and Death 101 (2007)

Soundtrack:

Put the Blame on Mame

Nothing from our era seems to compare

The 40s and 50s produced many alluring performances from beautiful and sexy actresses and Rita Hayworth's in Gilda is one of the most provocative of all. The film is good and quite deep, the male leads are better, but Hayworth's performance is simply stunning and unforgettable. She may not have been the most beautiful 40s actress (Gene Tierney and Veronica Lake were more classic beauties imo), but if you look closely her ability to show the sweet, the vulnerable, and especially the wanton, in women has not been bettered. Somehow her character gets under the male viewer's skin in the same way as it does to the male characters in the film.

Modern film femme fatales are a pale shadow by comparison, for example Linda Fiorentino or Sharon Stone. I'm not sure why. It could be either that nowadays allure is too much equated with sex or nudity (less tantalising than several dashes of suggestion) or maybe it's that present day equivalents are portrayed as hard as nails without the necessary mix of sadness and vulnerability.

Whatever, if you've never appreciated what the appeal of 40s noir is, this is definitely one to try.