MikePadgett.com

Gilda

— A gorgeous Rita Hayworth totally owns this tight, noirish drama and you end up forgiving her for the silly happy ending.”

• Director: Charles Vidor
• United States, 1946
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Despite being one of noir’s unlikelier icons, Rita Hayworth seems to have cornered the market in breezy gals with something to hide and in Gilda she does a roaring trade.

For this is indeed a movie of contrasts: it’s a dark, claustrophobic tale played out in a lavish Buenos Aires gambling joint; it’s about the intrigue of secretive Europeans and postwar paranoia in a wide open region that never saw battle. And into this twitchy scene – in which the gamblers watch the joint, the joint watches the monopoly cranks and the police watch everyone – steps all-American Hayworth who, whilst hiding a troubled past, sparkles like a firework that sets the whole thing alight.

If there’s one anomaly, it’s the anti-noir happy ending, in which Glenn Ford’s downbeat Johnny Farrell skips off into the sunset with a suddenly unfettered Gilda. Yet it is just about forgivable, since without their mutual past and their mutual desire, the central tension of the plot – built as it is around these two contrasting characters – could never be so convincing.