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GILDA
(1946, Vidor)
(1946, Vidor)
"Gilda, are you decent?"
I first saw The Shawshank Redemption back in late 1994 or early 1995, and it immediately became my favorite film. I've seen it more times than I could count, which means I've seen that famous scene from Gilda more times than I could count, as Red and Andy watch it in prison. The sight of Rita Hayworth coming into frame whipping her hair and smiling as she replies "Me? Sure, I'm decent" always gave me vibes of light melodrama or even comedy. Oh, but what a surprise I got as I finally sat down to watch this 1946 film.
Gilda follows Johnny Farrell (Glenn Ford), a small time gambler that ends up down on his luck in Argentina, which puts him in the path of the titular character (Hayworth) with whom he might have had a past we're not so sure about. To complicate things further, Gilda is now married to Ballin Mundson (George Macready), a shady casino owner that happens to be Johnny's new boss. Will decency prevail among them?
A "decent" person is defined as one that "conforms with generally accepted standards of respectable or moral behavior". But even though Gilda assures her husband that she is, indeed, "decent", the truth is that she spends all the film pushing back against those "standards", which puts her at extreme odds with her husband as well as with Johnny, who has been tasked by Mundson to "keep an eye on her". But Gilda is not having any of that, as she assures Johnny at one point that she's "going to do exactly what I please, when I please".
Although Gilda is often labeled as a romantic drama, the truth is that 85% of the film is Farrell and Gilda just taking jabs at each other as they are each filled with seething hatred. The toxicity of this relationship is quite bleak and probably one of my favorite things on the film. What does that say about me? I don't know, but I really loved seeing these two trying to take down each other. The dialogue and the lines were so pointed and sharp that I couldn't help but gasp and laugh at some of them ("Statistics show that there are more women in the world than anything else. Except insects."). Still, the delivery of these is never light, but extremely serious.
Aside from the script, most of the performances are quite good with Macready and Hayworth topping the list for me. Even though I've never seen any other film from Rita Hayworth, I was quite surprised by her performance and range. The direction from Charles Vidor and the cinematography from Rudolph Maté were also great, with some great camera movement and neat uses of lights and shadows, perhaps to illustrate that "decency", or lack thereof.
If I were to complain about something, it would be the ending. After seeing how harsh and unapologetic the film is, a certain final revelation felt like the writers were all of a sudden pulling their punches. Maybe because they wanted to make the film more accessible, or maybe the Hays Code forced them to change things to make Gilda more "decent", but it felt somewhat forced and apart from the tone and vibe that preceded it. Still, this was a pretty great watch.
Grade:
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