27) Gilda

Gilda (1946)

Director: Charles Vidor

Starring: Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford, George Macready, Steven Geray

I'm tutoring at Macquarie University in a subject called 'Introduction to Cinema'. Today was the opening lecture for the semester, with our first topic being classical Hollywood cinema and the associated screening was Gilda.

Just after the end of the second world war, small-time hustler Johnny Farrell (Ford) moves to Argentine. He is rescued from a mugger one night by Ballin Mundson (Macready), who it turns out owns the local underground casino. Upon seeing Farrell's ability to win at cards, Mundson hires him to win for the casino. Mr. Mundson and Johnny form a strong bond and when Mr. Mundson goes overseas he leaves Johnny in charge of the casino. However, everything changes when Mundson returns with a new wife, the playful and desirable Gilda (Hayworth). Not only has he broken their number one rule, no women ("Women and gambling don't mix"), he is unaware that Johnny and Gilda's paths have crossed before. Thus Johnny's role changes, with more and more of his time being spent trying to hide Gilda's indiscretions from her husband. On top of this Johnny discovers that Mr. Mundson's illegal activities extend much further than simply running an underground casino.

Gilda was the defining role in Rita Hayworth's career, and the one which propelled her into the stratosphere as one of the biggest stars of the 1940s. This was the role that inspired her famous quote, "Every man I knew went to bed with Gilda and woke up with me." I hadn't really seen her in anything prior to this and must confess that after watching Gilda I wasn't exactly blown away. She's a stunning woman, you can't deny that, and it is true that she was more renowned as a sex symbol than for her skills as an actress, but I thought her performance lacked a bit of subtlety. That wasn't a problem when she was playing Gilda in her public persona where she is a very vibrant, playful, unsubtle character, and she can do the scenes of high emotion like arguments and breaking down in tears, but in her more private moments where she was supposed to be displaying more complex emotions like 'concerned' or 'doubtful', she was a bit jarring. But other than that, the role was perfectly suited for her, taking complete advantage of what she had to offer as a sex symbol with a background in dancing, as she got to play on that flirtatious image (you get the famous hair-toss moment you may be familiar with if you've seen The Shawshank Redemption) and even perform a couple of extended dance numbers towards the end of the film.

Gilda is not your typical femme fatale that you find in a film noir like this. Traditionally the femme fatale is a dangerous woman who manipulates the male protagonist to get what she wants (think Lauren Bacall in The Big Sleep). Gilda, while displaying a similar level of sexual allure and influence on the men around her, is not that straight forward a character. Gilda doesn't actually know what she wants. She is simply rebellious not because she is trying to get anywhere, just because she doesn't know what to do. Gilda is not an evil character, she is a tragic character.

This is a film in which you can really see the influence of the old Production Code. The Production Code was the set of industry censorship guidelines which was in place in Hollywood up until 1968 when the introduction of what would become the ratings system (G, PG, R, etc) occurred. Unlike today, where different films can be restricted for different age groups, until 1968 all films had to be acceptable for someone of any age to view. The Production Code spelt out what was acceptable and unacceptable content for films produced for the American public. The first principle of the Production Code was that "No picture shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin." Thus, marital infidelity was looked down upon, which is where Gilda becomes interesting. For the first half of the film Gilda is shown to be openly cavorting with other gentlemen while her husband is not looking, and going home with a number of them. To adhere to the Production Code, this type of infidelity could not be tolerated. It was not a problem if they wished to kill her off at the end of the movie but in order to get their happy ending, the filmmakers had to find a way to explain away all of the perceived infidelity early in the film, which ultimately did not bring anything to the narrative.

Gilda is pure classical Hollywood. With that sprinkling of film noir it is everything that is fantastic about the Hollywood of the 30s, 40s and 50s. However, as good as it is, it hasn't really made that transition into greatness that others like Casablanca have. If you like classical Hollywood movies, you'll love this one.