GILDA (1946)

On 11/14/2012, in 100 Best Noirs, All Articles, by Administrator

GILDA is a film that appears on every list of top ten noirs we’ve ever seen, and still it is impossible to overstate how great the movie is. Rita Hayworth had acted in more than a dozen features before this one, but she was a revelation here. Her husband steps into her bedroom saying, “Gilda, are you decent?” And she appears with a hairflip and a wicked smile, saying, “Me?” Right away you know you’re in for a ride. You know this is a woman who is never decent. Something about the blazing eyes seems to promise unimaginable carnal adventures. She stands backlit in a nearly sheer shirt that shows the silhouettes of her breasts. After a song and dance routine she allows a stranger onstage to try and zip her out of her strapless black dress. At one point, about to ride off into the night with a suitor, she says, “Haven’t you heard, Gabe? If I’d been a ranch they’d have named me the Bar Nothing.” All this just to drive poor Glenn Ford mad with jealousy. Yes, Gilda is a femme fatale for the ages, and GILDA is a must-see piece of American cinema. The reason GILDA is classified as a film noir is relates more to the theme than the look. Cameraman Rudolph Maté created some characteristically noir images – the waterfront opening, some of the nighttime casino scenes, and the way Ballin seems to blend and merge with the shadows – but much of the movie features bright, flat lighting. The edgy, darker tone stems largely from the setting and plot twists. A casino has a built-in sense of fatalism to it anyway, a place where fortune or failure depend on the turn of a card or a throw of the dice. When this is combined with the South American setting, and the allusions to ex-Nazis involved in political and economic intrigue, it conjures up that sense of exotic danger that was very much in fashion in the mid to late 40s. Of course all this really only amounts to stylish cinema escapism; the key element that brings it into the noiruniverse is the sadomasochistic relationship at the core of the tale. The film is essentially a love story, but there’s a vicious, unpleasant side to the romance. Everything revolves around the title character, as she endeavors to punish both Johnny and Ballin. But in doing so, she incurs even greater punishment at their hands in return.

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