Gilda Details

“There never was a woman like Gilda!” shrieked the original poster (designed by James Bond title wizard Maurice Binder), and there never was anyone to capture the imagination like Rita Hayworth, whose first appearance in this movie is a classic star introduction. Highlights include her striptease (well, she takes off a glove!) to Put the Blame on Mame and her voluptuous vamping of callow Glenn Ford, whose perverse relationship with former boss and Gilda's husband George Macready seems to circumvent the censors by a mile. Columbia boss Harry Cohn was convinced Ford and Hayworth were having an affair during production and, to prevent his superstar straying from the straight and narrow, the famously tyrannical mogul had microphones hidden in their dressing rooms. But the move backfired after the couple found the mikes and began faking love scenes that made even the coarse Cohn blush. Hayworth's dance routines also raised the odd eyebrow, and not without cause, as choreographer Jack Cole based them on the act of a well-known stripper. Columbia's low-lit studio-bound Buenos Aires setting is quintessential 1940s film noir, and the whole is a remarkable example of the Hollywood system turning dross into pure gold. If you've never seen it, it's about time.

Archetypal Hollywood film noir, wholly studio-bound and the better for it, with dialogue that would seem risible if it did not happen to be dealt with in this style and with these actors, who keep the mood balanced between suspense and absurdity.