I have a fun personal story to share when it comes to Gilda (1946). It’s one of those noir classics that you’d figure I’d have seen by now. There’s an iconography to it that is abundantly clear, bringing with it a steamy Rita Hayworth performance so packed with sexual tension that you understand how she lures you in. It’s never explicit, but you get the antsy sense of the characters all fighting for her attention as something practical. It’s an iconic performance, drawing you to the screen immediately…
So why is it that it took me three times to watch this?
Basically, I have had terrible luck watching Gilda over the years. I have often had to rely on it airing on TV channels like TCM or The Movie Channel. While the former would be desired, the last time found me watching the latter’s commercial-heavy airing late at night. I knew this was a classic, and I pushed myself to watch it. But alas, I fell asleep for the second time without any chance of pausing the moment, returning to it in a much more stable state of rest.
Thanks to The Criterion Channel, I finally got my shot this week to try again. The third time was the charm as I found myself glued to the screen, finding every frame to be radiating with excellent direction, writing, and cinematography. Gilda was one of those femme Fatales that you couldn’t help but fall for. If she came to you personally, you wouldn’t want to turn her down because she has an aura about her, making you believe that she couldn’t be this vicious monster. She’s as layered as a Marilyn Monroe performance, and trying to understand her complexity is part of this film’s charm.
If you’re like me, Gilda’s reputation outside of great reviews came with The Shawshank Redemption (1994), adapted from Stephen King’s “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption.” The famous introductory scene is featured in the film, a crowd of prisoners howling as they see this radiant beauty. It’s one of those moments, like Monroe on a grate in The Seven Year Itch (1955), that not only defines the actress’ career but is a timeless moment of classic cinema. Even out of the context of Gilda, it’s a striking moment. You understand why King chose that image specifically, because it’s one of seductive charm, hiding these darker secrets underneath. There is something in there that we’re all chasing,
But does the movie have more value than that image? I couldn’t even tell you what the story was about, which made me finally watching it an exciting gambit.
I suppose the greatest thing that the film has going for it is the direction from Charles Video, who manages to turn Buenos Aires into the seediest landscape imaginable. Ballin Mundson (George Macready) is the owner who assigns a gambler named Johnny Farrell (Glenn Ford) to work for him. Johnny fits the bill for this type of scrappy employee who does enough to get by, staying out of trouble right as it is ready to punch him in the face. He’s our entryway into this world, and the casino’s underlying hostility is kept under a collar as he stumbles upon his boss’ inner circle.
If you must know how Johnny sees this world, there are an endless amount of shots featuring Ballin in discussion with Johnny not in typical profile, but in something straight out of German Expressionism. He is this shadow, looming over Johnny’s life as he just tries to get by. His life is aimless, so it makes sense that he sees his boss as this soulless void, wishing to consume him whole and turn him into anonymity. There is no joy to be found in Johnny’s life, at least not at first.
Vidor deserves a lot of credit for how he navigates the film at first. Instead of giving us easy answers, he makes Johnny search for an understanding in the murky territory. If you know nothing about this film, you’d think that Gilda was someone more abstract, like The Maltese Falcon (1941), and that we’d only meet her after the story had wound down. We don’t know who Gilda is. She almost seems insignificant for most of the first act.
And then it happens. Johnny is invited into Ballin’s inner sanctum, preparing to go out for drinks on the town. As he walks into her room, he asks her “Are you decent” to which she replies “Who me?”
You probably could dedicate half of this essay to that abrupt sequence. You wouldn’t think much of it at first, but there’s so much subtext to every move. Gilda appears as if enslaved to Ballin by living in his house (at least he has that impression). Her rise from the bottom corner of the screen as the hair flips over is such a magnificent moment, as if lifting a curtain on the show that will be Gilda’s performance. Then you get her face. Hayworth looks like she was born to be a star, and you are taken in by her smile immediately. When she says “Who me?” there’s this casual playfulness that either Ballin and Gilda have a playful relationship, or she is scheming him for something deeper. Also, do they think of decent as being the same thing?
Their dynamic is clear within five words and seconds of footage. For the first time, we see Ballin as human. After spending so much time painting this casino as a dreary landscape, we’re watching the lights go up in Johnny’s life. We immediately understand what he sees in Gilda because she’s much more than a Lauren Bacall prototype. She’s got a joy in her eyes that makes you believe that she is more naïve and innocent than she likely is.
There is also this hot under the collar nature between Johnny and Gilda because they used to date. Suddenly the story has this deeper meaning. It’s more than Johnny trying to just get by and make another buck while getting into fights. Suddenly he has this old fling that he can get back, and he wants to do everything to retrieve Gilda from marrying Ballin. The further into their relationship that you get, the more that you see the divides in their nature. Ballin feels like the guy you marry because of the opportunities he will give you instead of something deeper.
Johnny tries to believe that what he had with her was something more spiritual, finding kindred spirits in their wayward lives. Gilda’s life is fine at this casino, with regular performances every night. Even with the black and white cinematography, her velvet-black dress shines, making her magnetic in presence as well as talent. You understand the fulfillment she will get from that marriage, even as seedy figures begin to enter her life and make the simple transaction far more unpleasant.
At Gilda’s core, it’s a perfect character study because of the time that we get to spend with Johnny and Gilda. While we see him become brighter, we see her grow darker. They have their own perverse compatibility, and one has to wonder if they should’ve ever seen each other again. If Johnny never wound up here, Gilda likely would’ve gone on recouping her life and becoming this great performer and being a local star. Johnny would probably just be as he was, getting by on foolish luck and quick decisions.
With that said, there is this underlying passion that they have for each other. Even in a crowded room, they feel like every word serves as foreplay. You’re feeling like there will come a moment when Gilda will put down her guitar and give him a big kiss. The strings will swell and this will be the moment where the seduction pays off. They want to get away together, and there is this hypnotic way that Vidor makes you feel it. In a place where Gilda’s fiancé often appears in an impersonal shadow, he shows this divide between characters even within their own relationships.
It’s the type of story where we can meander in a club booth for 10 minutes and make it the greatest feeling in the world. There is something about that table that is intimate, overlooking the chaos around them. It’s in part because of the conversations that slowly unveil more devious subplots, but also because it’s the moments where the characters talk the most in a code that may be English, but comes in blinks and glances that the audience understands. This is a mystery of a relationship trying to reform but ultimately can only exist by tearing apart a capitalist figure and risking reputation.
To say that the film ends is to be generous. There is this inability to fully escape one’s past to the point that we don’t have a clear answer. We come to the conclusion that Johnny and Gilda have to escape, and it’s here that the film threatens to turn into a cartoon. There are forces keeping them from leaving. Since this is a noir, you’re left wondering if this will be their demise. It’s plausible, though you’d never want anything to happen to Gilda. She manages to be one of the most delightful, devious characters in the genre.
Suddenly there’s a handful of murders and plot twists that happen so quickly that they don’t have time to resonate. We’re equally shocked as we are just willing to go with it, so long as these lovebirds can escape to safer lands. As the film cuts to black, it’s not like they’re even out of the building, nor is their distress entirely over. They still have to escape Buenos Aires, and it’s very anticlimactic.
It plays like one of those films whose endings were burned because it was too controversial or poorly written. The studio wanted something more upbeat and encouraging to leave these characters on, and the best we can do is leave them in the state of uncertainty that they started with. It’s melodramatic, not resolved in any meaningful way, and it means that we’re stuck making up our own ending. Is it lazy, or is it brilliant? There’s a little bit of both.
While Hayworth’s entire career speaks for itself, you can understand why this was the movie that launched her. Every time she is on screen, the movie is elevated in quality by a significant margin. She doesn’t even need to be progressing the plot. All she needs is to draw us in, believing that we’re in a special moment. She has that gift as an actress, and it helps that her chemistry with Ford is exceptional. While neither seems capable of surviving in this world alone, they somehow make sense with each other.
On one hand, Gilda is not an exceptional or revolutionary story. It’s more about the chemistry, and that’s generally what film noir has gotten by on. Every classic is more about the downtrodden characters, eagerly looking for some form of happiness. By making it a marital affair, it finds a way to take it out of a generic crime thriller and explores how these emotions can be applied to something personal. There’s a steaminess in the hopeless nature of the story, and you want to believe that things will work out. That’s the magic of cinema in a nutshell. Even when things don’t totally make sense, we have personal dreams.
Then again, Hayworth’s Gilda is just that. She is a dream to behold. Few characters have had introductions this deceptively simple, allowing for multiple interpretations and road maps to appear from behind a smile. She brings so much out of us as a viewer, and it’s a testament to her gift as an actress, finding ways to elevate the noir above its flaws into a crucial piece of entertainment. It’s at times silly, but ultimately it’s a story looking for hope in a shadowy place. Thanks to Vidor, that’s often done literally with perfect execution. Seeing this in context doesn’t take anything away. It’s not like Psycho (1960) where your jump scare in a shower loses impact. Knowing and not knowing what Gilda is thinking is far more exciting. You can even wonder what she means by “Who me?” She’s playing her own game, and we just have to be pawns if we want to attempt to get any answers
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