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Excellent,
…Not only has nothing been cut here, but the version presented on this DVD is the recently restored one, with some glaring defects that spoil the VHS edition conspicuously and thankfully absent. The running time is 106 minutes, that is exactly the full length of the film as it should be in PAL, at 25 frames per second (it would be 4 minutes longer in NTSC, at 24 fps). The quality of the picture is marvellous, and especially considering that the zone 1 DVD release seems to have been cancelled, this one is not to be missed. Of course, one wishes for more bonus materials, but you can’t have everything, and any one of Rita’s dance numbers here is worth the 20 quid anyway.
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|A gorgeous Rita Hayworth, a sword cane and enough hate for all,
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Gilda is Rita Hayworth’s movie down to the last frame. It’s also one of the oddest and most enjoyable combinations of misogyny, love, hate, implied homosexuality, tungsten cartels, Nazi conspiracies and megalomania. The movie also features an intriguing menage a trois. No, not the one with Gilda, Johnny and Ballin, but the one with Ballin and his two “little friends,” his sword cane and Johnny. Note that elements of the plot are discussed.
Johnny Farrell (Glenn Ford) is a down-on-his-luck gambler who is saved from being robbed in a rough part of Buenos Aires by an elegant guy in formal attire and a sword cane. He’s Ballin Mundson (George Macready). Mundson is intrigued by Johnny’s competence, his willingness to make his own luck and…who knows? He offers Johnny a job in the elegant night club he owns, actually in the casino. Although gambling is against the law, Mundson has obviously made all kinds of accommodations and arrangements. In short order he moves Johnny up to manager and junior partner, but when he returns from a trip with a wife, tensions and suspicions emerge like worms from a rotten apple. Mundson’s new wife is Gilda (Rita Hayworth), a lush sexpot whom Mundson actually loves. Unknown to him, Gilda and Johnny have a history. We don’t know what happened exactly, but Gilda hates Johnny and Johnny detests Gilda. But something’s going on besides hate. “I hated her so, I couldn’t get her out of my mind for a minute,” Johnny tells us. It works both ways. One night Gilda asks Johnny, “You do hate me, don’t you, Johnny?” “I don’t think you have any idea of how much,” he says. Gilda looks at him with half-closed eyes. “Hate is a very exciting emotion. Haven’t you noticed? Very exciting. I hate you too, Johnny. I hate you so much I think I’m going to die from it.” Even Mundson, when his suspicions are aroused, starts talking about hate. “If you’re worried about Johnny Farrell, don’t be. I hate him!,” Gilda tells her husband. “And he hates you,” Ballin says. “That’s very apparent. But hate can be a very exciting emotion. Very exciting. Haven’t you noticed that? There is a heat in it, that one can feel. Didn’t you feel it tonight?” “No,” Gilda says. “I did,” Ballin replies. “It warmed me. Hate is the only thing that has ever warmed me.”
Johnny is loyal to Mundson. Even though he obsessively fails to recognize Gilda’s love for him, he tries to keep Mundson from learning about Gilda’s apparent affairs with others. When Mundson is implicated in a murder, flees and appears to die in a plane crash, Johnny is named trustee in Mundson’s will, which leaves everything to Gilda. He marries Gilda out of hatred, resentment and guilt. There is no reconciliation on the marriage bed; Johnny keeps her watched day and night. He also learns about Mundson’s single-minded ambition to control the world’s tungsten, of his dealings with Nazis toward the end of the war, and of the determination of an Argentinean detective to blow apart Mundson’s criminal business dealings. And at the end, when Johnny does the right thing, when he realizes he’s been wrong about Gilda…Ballin Mundson comes back, determined to use his one “little friend” to kill his other “little friend,” and Gilda as well.
If any movie could be said to be deliberately constructed to boost an actor to super stardom, this is it. The camera loves Hayworth, and she is photographed with exquisite care. Whether she’s doing a non-strip strip to “Put the Blame on Mame” or just looking teary-eyed and vulnerable, she’s gorgeous. Glenn Ford, or any other actor who would have played Johnny, has a tough job competing. He’s supposed to be tough, competent, yet hurt so deeply that he obsessively hates Gilda until the last ten minutes of the movie. His attitude, to me, gets tiresome after awhile. Ford also looks boyish, a look that stayed with him until the mid-Fifties. He’s not completely convincing as the kind of guy that a full-blown woman like Gilda would fall for so completely. George Macready, as the third person in the menage, had probably the best role of his career. He’s a cool, sophisticated smoothie, a little condescending, and the real-life scar he had on his cheek adds to his menace. It’s believable that his Ballin Mundson might be partly attracted to Johnny Farrell for a reason that dare not speak its name. On the other hand, it’s also believable his Mundson might truly, at least at first, be besotted by Gilda. There are two other nice performances by Steven Geray as an impertinent but wise washroom attendant and by Joseph Calleia as a patient Argentinean cop.
The DVD transfer is excellent. The most interesting extra is a feature on Hayworth called “Rita Hayworth: The Columbia Lady.” She comes across as a sympathetic, good-natured woman with a sense of humor and little ego. She died of Alzheimer’s, cared for by one of her daughters, after years of being thought a drunk and emotionally unstable. She had lousy…
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|A badly cut version of a superb classic movie,
I first saw “Gilda” when I was a child. I was taken to see it by my parents and it has remained a favourite of mine ever since. A cousin of mine had told me that she went to see if every time it came to town and I could easily understand why. It is a perfect example of the romantic film noir of the 40s, with a terrific atmosphere of the exotic and the erotic.
The chemistry between the stars, Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford and George Macready is electric, in spite of the restrictive censorship laws of the period. Rita was at the peak of her career and never more beautiful. Until then she had been a star of Columbia musicals, a fabulous dancer and, in two films, one of the finest dancing partners of Fred Astaire. Here, she was able to prove that she was also a very accomplished actress, and, in a couple of song and dance routines in night-club scene, a stunning performer. No wonder Prince Ali Kahn and Orson Welles married her and no wonder she was given the name of “Love Goddess” by the press. Unfortunately she was never given the chance to repeat this achievement, although she was always a highly watchable performer who never gave a bad performance, even if some of the movies she appeared in were very poor.
The great perfromances, the glossy black and white photography by Rudolph Mate; the strange flamboyant sets that echo the lives of the rich and nervous displaced characters living in South America; the haunting Latin American music, and the sparkling dialogue must have totally captivated wartime audiences. It still rates as a very special movie and has become a great classic.
So why, oh why have some key scenes and dialogue been cut out of the DVD version? It is inexplicable when the total running time is not very long anyway. Rita’s reprise of the song “Amado Mio” has gone, and so has a critical line from her first scene with George Macready as her sinister and jealous husband. There is a short film about Rita’s career on the disk, which is fine, but I would rather have had the complete movie. The picture and sound quality are excellent, but no compensation for the missing items, especially in view of the high price of the disk.
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