Top 50 Actresses, #30 - Rita Hayworth: "Gilda" (1946)

Movie Stats:
Released 1946 (USA)
American, in English (minor, non-translated Spanish, German & French)
Director - Charles Vidor
Stars - Glenn Ford, George Macready, Rita Hayworth

Plot Summary:
After card shark Johnny Farrell (Ford) & casino owner Ballin Mundson (Macready) meet in Buenos Aires, they build a close working relationship until Gilda (Hayworth) comes between them.

Warnings:
Violence; minor gore.

Bad Stuff:
I could have done without all the generalizations about women. There’s more than one “All women say/do/are X” statement.

The writing is a little lazy. The film never really explains Johnny & Gilda’s past or the “tungsten plot” and it comes across as less in a “infer it from the story” way and more in a “hand wave, nothing to see here” way. Also, I feel that the “Ballin is crazy!” narrative at the end of the movie is a convenient plot device to help the audience find his fate more palatable. I never got “crazy” from the performance.

I hated how incapable Johnny & Gilda were of behaving and communicating like rational adults around one another. It would be one thing if they were 18/19, but it was really unattractive coming from grown ups. It was difficult to root for them.

Good Stuff:
I loved Joseph Calleia (as police detective Maurice Obregon) and Steven Geray (as “Uncle” Pio). Both of their characters brought humor and rationality to a relatively dreary film.

I enjoyed the dialogue. It wasn’t of the “snappy” variety that I adore, but it was witty.

I liked Johnny & Ballin’s friendship, and how loyal Johnny is to Ballin (until Gilda messes with it, of course).

Hayworth’s costuming is amazing.

About the Performance:
I’m having trouble rating Hayworth’s performance because I disliked Gilda so much as a character. She’s exactly the kind of woman who somehow always ends up in the middle of a love triangle in film: such a terrible, awful, no-good human being that I don't believe that one person would fall in love with her, let alone two at the same time. I guess Hayworth was good at portraying that because I really don’t like her now and don’t think I want to see any more of her films. She’s definitely very beautiful, sexy, and sultry. I think she was born to play characters like this.

Other performances of Hayworth’s I’ve reviewed: none.

The Verdict:
While it may not seem like it, I did enjoy this film. Unlikable characters are just as important in fiction as likable ones. My biggest problem is the laziness of the writing, particularly in regards to the “tungsten plot.” It seemed really obvious to me that the author didn’t actually understand anything about tungsten and was using it as a “bogeyman,” of sorts, in the same breathless, reverent way “hacking” is referred to in modern cinema. It bugged me every time it came up. Overall, however, I thought the film was entertaining. It’s very good at setting a dark atmosphere, and the performances are top-notch. I wouldn’t say I liked it quite as much as I expected to, but it’s still above average, as far as movies go.

I give it 3.75 stars.