Gilda 1946

 Gilda are you decent? So asks George MacCready right before we are introduced to Gilda played by Rita Hayworth in one of the most brilliant and beautiful entrances in the history of film. There is more. Made in 1946 right after the war and set in a fake make believe Buenos Aires which has nothing to do with the real city. This backlot city is cramped and claustrophobic and consists mainly of only two settings, the gambling casino owned by MacCready and managed by his late night alley pick up Glenn Ford who says to him“Get this I was born last night when we met in the alley” and the lush but tacky mansion that is home to MacCready and Ford until Gilda comes along. There is more. It is also a  claustrophobic and complicated plot which opens with a terrific dice game played by a broke and broken down Ford and moves on to a spider’s web density of deceit, and criminality and I might add S&M encounters both verbal and physical. Ford knocks Rita around and Rita gives as good as she gets. They have a past with each other.  Directed by Charles Vidor who had a few years earlier done “Cover Girl” with Hayworth and that hunk of male beauty Gene Kelly, Vidor was never a top notch director, he made some good entertainment for sure, his best being “Cover Girl” as mentioned above and his beauty of a musical bio “Love Me Or Leave Me” with Doris Day. 

There are shadows in all their lives that might cause confusion to the audiences in their understanding of the story. Is it a love triangle going on here? Or for the more sophisticated members of the 1946 audience maybe they got the gist of this relationship being a homo-erotic or at least a bi thing. There is also MacCready’s little friend which is a walking cane, that becomes a sharp knife tip when clicked open and is a smashing phallic image pushed in our faces. Some little friend. MacCready with his real life cheek scar and deep beautiful voice is the perfect villain, scary, unpredictable and traitorous with some hidden and not so hidden Nazi history lurking in his not too distant past, this is 1946 after all and Nazi’s were still visible in real time and in Hollywood thrillers and noirs including another 1946 thriller “Notorious” which has a lot in common with “Gilda” including a ravishing actress, and a difficult combative romance between the leads. “Notorious” is also set in a foreign South American city, this time in Rio de Janeiro and also features a fierce villain or two.  Both films were huge box office hits and both were big attractions at Radio City Music Hall, “Gilda” to my mind being a surprise choice to play the “Hall”.

Then there is the wonderful black gown designed by Jean Louis that Gilda wears when she does her big semi strip tease number “Put The Blame On Mame”. We wonder what is holding up this creation on Rita as she sings (dubbed by Anita Ellis) and dances and moves to Jack Coles choreography.  No one moved like Rita, and the dance is memorable and is always visually quoted both in motion and stills. The film is lush looking thanks to the cinematographer Rudolph Mate, and is fun to watch, even though a lot of it is confused and chaotic. The ending is a little too abrupt and phony as the leads take off for a happy ending, and some of us might be left scratching our heads in disbelief over what we have just seen and we’ve seen plenty.