Rating 3.5/4

“Hate can be a very exciting emotion. There is a heat in it, that one can feel. Didn’t you feel it tonight? It warmed me. Hate is the only thing that has ever warmed me.”
Ballin Mundson (George Macready) is sincere when he says this to his wife and she doesn’t disagree. She repeats it herself to her lover Johnny (Glenn Ford) and he doesn’t disagree either.

Charles Vidor’s 1946 film noir, Gilda, is not a love story. It’s a hate story. It’s a story of people using love to cruelly punish and destroy each other.

Gilda (Rita Hayworth) hates Johnny for walking out on her years ago. Johnny hates her for humiliating him and making him feel less like a man. Her husband Ballin hates everybody and carries it wherever he goes so much that no one notices anymore. What comes of this hatred is one of the most unhealthy love triangles out of classic Hollywood.

Johnny makes a crude living as a cheating gambler in Argentina who believes “a dollar is a dollar in any language.” I looked it up and he’s right. What he’s wrong about, though, is that he can keep getting away with cheating. After he’s caught doing it at a Buenos Aires casino Johnny comes face to face with the understandably offended Ballin Mundson who owns the joint. Ballin takes a liking to the kid and instead of smashing his fingers with a hammer he offers him a job as personal security.

Their partnership is surprisingly a happy one although it is apparent that Ballin is keeping secrets from him. Things become more complicated when Johnny is introduced to Ballin’s new wife, the one and only Gilda, his ex. Ballin who has made hate so much a part of himself that he can recognize it begins to sense something is wrong right away. He doesn’t suspect that the two know each other, but he amazingly recognizes hatred coming from Gilda to Johnny immediately. Johnny and Gilda’s “introduction” is extremely cordial and lacks even the slightest innuendo of hostility. But Ballin picks it up all the same even when he cannot understand it.
The movie provides the viewer none of their backstory up to this point letting us see the scene from Ballin’s eyes. We are as perplexed as he is when he questions Gilda about her hatred and she coyly denies it. Not until she and Johnny meet each other later that the truth comes out. It is almost soap opera-like when she is suddenly introduced in this way. Johnny makes no previous mention of her in the film, not even in the frequent voice-overs that are true to film noir fashion. This way of bringing Gilda into the story is effective in making sense of Ballin’s actions later in the movie. He is an extremely complex character and very little of this film is given from his perspective. By doing so here is masterful screenwriting.

Ballin slowly begins to realize their history and starts becoming more possessive and watchful of her. Johnny does so to, but even more aggressively and he deceives himself by saying it’s for his boss’s sake.

Ballin’s dealings with German mafia adds more tension to the situation as Gilda and Johnny meanwhile begin an affair that is both hateful and passionate. For the both of them it is driven purely by sexual passion and they bitterly try to use it overpower the other.
The various twists and turns of the plot lead them closer and closer to each other and Johnny unleashes cruel emotional abuse to bring her down to the humiliation he once felt and which he believes she deserves. Power obtained, Johnny reveals himself to be an awful and vicious man who has resented this woman’s independence and confidence from the very beginning.

At the end we see them at the absolute lowest they can be and Johnny’s empire comes crumbling down around him. Ultimately the film robs us of any emotionally poignant resolution by providing a tacked-on happy ending that undermines the message. An unbelievable twist ending followed by no tragedy ruins the experience.

Overall Gilda is a great film that could have been better concluded. The movie made Rita Hayworth a Hollywood icon and sex symbol. It also launched a long affair between her – married to Orson Welles at the time – and co-star Glenn Ford.

The cinematography was done by Rudolph Maté also known for his work on Dreyer’s Vampyr. In Gilda he plays with light and shadow with the characters emotional states often masking their faces during moments when they are at their most honest.
Jack Cole’s choreography of Hayworth’s dance numbers are legendary and “Put the Blame on Mame” became a staple reused in other films noir.
The movie was produced by Columbia film producer Virginia van Upp who was only one of three women producing films at the time. She was also an accomplished screenwriter who had helped coach Hayworth for this role who was mostly known for doing musical comedies at the time.
The movie has a keen understanding of male emotional abuse in relationships and I think Virgina’s involvement shows.