Director: Charles Vidor
Producer: Virginia Van Upp
Screenwriters: Jo Eisinger and Marion Parsonnet
Cinematographer: Rudolph Mate
Music: Hugo Friedhofer
Studio: Columbia 1946
Main Acting: Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford
As a young boy of 12, I accompanied my father on an overnight fishing trip that set out from Sheepshead Bay Harbor. Located in Brooklyn on an inlet in Rockaway, it boasts a 40-boat shipping fleet (along with a slew of restaurants) that allows eager customers the opportunity to charter the surrounding waters and take in as much marine life as possible. And for us, it was about trying to catch fluke and flounder which happens to be in abundance in the coastal areas of the east coast. But that night, I spent much of my time fighting the elements, unable to shake a severe case of sea sickness. Still at one point, I forced myself to leave the cabin area after a long spell glued to one of the seats withering in discomfort, and headed for the ship’s rail so that I wouldn’t waste my fathers hard earned money. I struggled to just barely cast a line for less than half of the 6-to-8 hour trip. As luck would have it, I ended up catching the biggest fluke on the ship and collected a hundred dollar prize for my troubles. (My parents still have that photo of me holding the fish somewhere). I thanked the sea captain for my bounty and never again bothered to set foot on another fishing vessel.
I quickly used this reward money to buy a cheap Cort electric guitar and my generous father threw in extra cash so I could purchase an amplifier. Being young and stupid, I got the most obnoxious, heavy metal-looking instrument you will ever see anywhere (it was star shaped with four points). Three friends and I were all in love with Guns n’ Roses, and, of course, desperate to start a band. I had become the nominal guitar player, while one of them had acquired a bass two months earlier and his brother a drumkit. The fourth friend also wanted to be a drummer. Hence, we had the unorthodox lineup of two percussionists on one set of drums and no vocalist. The problem was that none of us knew how to play and we were all pretty lazy. Band practice consisted of playing for about ten minutes before stopping to conceptualize what our group was all about. We even had homework assignments which included writing song lyrics on paper and reciting it to the rest of the members. I actively partook in this endeavor and concocted all sorts of paens to things I was too young to know or understand. One of my literary masterpieces went by the title, “My Pistol.”
In hindsight, the song’s lyrics (which I wouldn’t print here even if I could remember them) would seem to suggest that I was talking about my “rod, or johnson” as Maude Lebowski once so eloquently said. The truth is that at 12, I was a very innocent naive kid that knew nothing about sex. My parents were Southern Italian immigrants who would never dream of telling me about the birds and the bees. While sexual discourse was completely taboo in my house, my father never felt similarly inclined to shield me from violent 80s action movies starring his favorites: Stallone, Norris, and Schwarzenegger. I was quite used to seeing a retired army operative gunning down a whole combat force (with the same extras dying every few frames) in pursuit of either his daughter or American POW’s. When I sat down to think of topics for songs, my young impressionable mind quickly found inspiration in these excessive Hollywood pictures. I skipped excitedly to the group’s basement hangout the next day and showed my fellow bandmates what I had written. They all loved it and wanted to practice right away. After about nine minutes, we stopped and continued to further deliberate on our inevitable rise to fame and untold riches.
The twist in this embarrassing anecdote is that later that afternoon we took my song lyrics to the “cool mom” of one of my friends. Unlike my parents, who listened to Neapolitan singer Mario Merola and soft rockers Bread, she enjoyed heavy metal music, and was even once acquainted with local metal group White Lion. Very supportive of our musical ambitions, she was eager to see our progress and offer support to the “art” we were creating. However when she read the words to “My Pistol,” she chuckled with amusement and said something along the lines of…”Maurizio, you’re such a little perv. Do you know what this song is about?” My cool facade quickly starting to unravel, I said nervously, “Yeah, it’s about guns and being tough like Marion Cobretti.” “Really?” said cool mom. “It seems like you’re talking about your penis.” My shame lasts until this day. I vividly remember ripping those looseleaf papers up into a million tiny pieces. How could I unknowingly write something so perverse and mortifying? As you can see, I didn’t become famous and the band never really went anywhere after that. Those ten-minute jam sessions got shorter and shorter until they ceased to exist. “My Pistol” was never spoken of again.
Charles Vidor made one excellent film in his seemingly average career. It happened to be Gilda, featuring the second most beautiful actress ever after the incomparable Gene Tierney: Rita Hayworth. The movie straddles the line between film noir and “women’s picture” melodrama. Some say that there is a homoerotic subtext present throughout the movie between Glenn Ford’s Johnny Farrell and George Macready’s Ballin Mundson. After all, the latter character constantly carries around a phallic-looking walking stick that doubles as a knife and both male characters seem more concerned with each other than the strikingly beautiful woman crying out for their attention. Yet I wonder if Mr. Vidor really intended such a reading into his 1946 film noir. I have always felt we were kindred spirits and that his “Gilda” was my “My Pistol.” Both misunderstood. Me, by an older, wiser parent. Him, by a modern, more “sophisticated and cynical” viewing public.
Whoa, weird, I just watched this yesterday. Great story, Maurizio, and it’s a really good movie. It’s one of those movies where its ostensible plot completely fades away in comparison to the real meat of the film: in this case, Rita Hayworth. I’ve almost forgotten all the improbable nonsense about tungsten and cartels and police detectives already, and give me another week and I’m sure I won’t remember a bit of the plot. What I will remember is Gilda, such a great character, a woman who’s been told she’s a tramp so often that she’s started to believe it, or at least to think that she should start living up to the name. Hayworth is just an amazing presence in this film, sexy and vivacious and yet so much more than a bombshell; she digs deep to reveal the real, complex woman beneath all the curves.
And yeah, though Vidor may not have intended any homoerotic subtext, there’s really no mistaking the relationship between the two men for anything else. How else to explain the scene where Johnny starts to get jealous as soon as he HEARS that Mundson has a woman – he’s not jealous that Mundson has a beautiful girl, because he hasn’t seen her yet, and he’s not jealous that Mundson has Gilda, because he doesn’t know it’s her yet, he’s jealous that Mundson has someone, anyone, other than him.
no, no, no, this is a LGBT film, and that homosexual subtext is what this film is about! In Dyer’s great book ‘The Matter of Images: Essays on Representations’ he devotes no less then two essays to tackling this films dense subtext and subject matter. Highly recommended.
Another one I’d probably rate top 10 of the genre, love this film. Incredibly subversive on several levels.
oh and to answer Maurizio, I’m not sure how anyone can watch the initial meeting between Glenn Ford’s Johnny Farrell and George Macready’s Ballin Mundson and NOT see or think it’s a homosexual film. It’s the purpose of the entire scene, and that meeting then drives the entire film. Then the sexual dynamics provide the relevance to Rita’s later allure.
There is a clear homosexual undercurrent in Gilda but I can’t find one shred of evidence anywhere that Charles Vidor intended this. As I mention in my piece, our “sophisticated modern” eyes pick up on it and see something 40′s viewers did not. I’ve read some of the contemporary reviews on Gilda and not one single critic mentions this obvious sub text ever. I think the truth is that it was most likely just coincidence.
well, I really don’t need to have what I plainly see reaffirmed by a critic of the day or the Director. Whether he intended it or not doesn’t take away from the fact that it’s both there, and for many people seeing this film originally in 1946 that homosexual context was important (which is confirmed in the documentary THE CELLULOID CLOSET). The fact that it’s also absent from the critics take on the film says more to me about the zeitgeist of the day and its prevalent sexual morays then anything contained in the film.
Take for example another recent LGBT landmark work, FIGHT CLUB. Outside gay publications and critics you won’t see a word about its obvious undertones, and again like GILDA perhaps, I don’t think Fincher knew, or cared about that subtext either (and with the source material it’s rather obvious).
And, if I decided to give credence to your argument (that it’s just a culture looking at the film 50 or 60 years later) the film still is a landmark one that far ahead of it’s time. But this also diminishes the sexual dynamism and psychology of the film, which are the reasons it’s so complex and brilliant.
I could be wrong but I think David Fincher has come out saying the gay subtext was something he was aware of and meant to stress. I personally don’t think the same could be said of Vidor. Regardless, Gilda is a really good movie…
Not sure how Fincher could ‘mean to stress’ it when every overt homoerotic part in the book is grossly massaged for mainstream audiences. The most obvious? Tyler and Jack’s initial meeting is at a nude beach in the book, and Jack is quite enamored with Tyler’s sun-kissed, wet, nude body. In the film Fincher opts for the hokey conversation on the plane about ‘being clever’ and selling soap.
Well I never read the book Jamie, so I have to say you are probably right. I think I have it somewhere in my apartment but never read it. It seems then that Fincher purposely eased out the homoerotic stuff. At least he was aware of it and did add subtle touches/sly winks. Regardless, I have never been a huge fan of Fight Club. The trying so hard to be hip vibe reminds me of why I dislike The Social Network…
I don’t really see it as trying ‘so hard to be hip’ that’s a cursory reading of the film/book.
Some of Fincher’s films bother me with their sarcastic witty tone. I love both Seven and Zodiac, but everything else I can leave. I guess I enjoy the grim overly serious stuff over the more black humor vibe of Fight Club and Social Network…
I think his best two are FIGHT CLUB and ZODIAC, the rest are daft.
Yeah Ed like I told Jamie, the homosexual undercurrent is hard to miss. I still think it’s not a calculated move by the director. More of a happy accident that gives Gilda added richness. Rita Hayworth is stunning throughout. One of Welles’ biggest achievements in Hollywood…
Oh, and I had a chance to do a bit of research:
“Women in Film Noir”, Edited by E.Anne Kaplan, chapter 8, footnote #3.
“According to Ford, the homosexual angle was obvious to them at the time; they could see the implications in the relationship between the two men in the early part of the film- nothing stated, just mood.”
From John Kobal: “the Time, the Place, the Girl; Rita Hayworth.
So there ya go.
This is always be the movie for which Rita Hayworth is best remembered. I agree with the choice and found your review well written and informative.
Yeah Frank it’s Rita’s signature role though maybe not her best.
I enjoyed the fishing trip lead-in. This has always been one of my favorite noirs as Sam knows.
Thanks Bobby I tried to mess with form a little on this one. The story is 100% true. For Halloween a few years ago, me and my girlfriend went to a party dressed as Axl and Slash (me being the guitarist). I went to my parent’s attic and dusted off this same Cort Guitar that had been laying there untouched for years. It looks nothing like Slash’s usual Les Paul, but it did the trick.
That’s a hilarious (and decidedly, embarrassing) anecdote that you’ve shared here with us. As a matter of fact, sexual discourse is a taboo in the country I live in, so I can very well appreciate the situation that you’ve described
Yeah, I’ll go with your summation that Gilda is a combination of film noir and “women’s picture” melodrama. It isn’t a full-blooded noir as one would expect, yet it is a noir alright. And yeah, that song that Rita Hayworth dances to certainly remains one of the most iconic cinematic moments.
Oh yeah I consider it a film noir. It is more than borderline in my opinion. I’m glad my personal embarrassments amused you Shub lol. Like a sad comedian I look to get laughs any way I can.
A review of Gilda without Gilda?
Maurizio your little anecdote is a stretch but at least you tried a novel approach. Forget about the director here, it is the screenplay. Ben Hecht one of the great Hollywood writers had an uncredited role in shaping the script, and the homo-erotic meta-text is definitely by design. And homo-erotic does not necessarily mean homosexual – more a threesome than a twosome.
The most original review of Gilda I have read is here – go past the hubris of the reviewer for some interesting ideas – http://andrewsidea.wordpress.com/2008/03/11/a-look-at-gilda/ – before I read this review, I had a rather naive view of Gilda. “Aptly titled, this film is all about Rita Hyaworth’s Gilda: forget the weak story and the plot holes, just marvel at the beauty and charisma of this woman. She dances, she struts, she pouts, and she acts with passion and flair! And forget it if you are looking for a film noir: it is not. As a film it ranks with flawed gems like Beat The Devil – it just doesn’t add up but you have a helluva time anyway.” When challenged by the writer of that review about it not being noir, I had this to say.
I wrote this before I read your review of Gilda. Gilda was first identified as a noir by Borde and Chaumeton in their seminal, A Panorama of Film Noir 1941-1953 (1955): “within the noir series Gilda was a film apart, an almost unclassifiable movie in which eroticism triumphed over violence and strangeness.” – see http://tinyurl.com/4a7lla for a fuller extract.
From my “What is Film Noir” FAQ: “[Borde and Chaumeton] in seeking to explain why films noir appeared, saw as a major influence the emergence of a wider awareness of psychoanalysis and its motifs in America at the time. Their analysis of their canon of the first big three post-war noirs was centered on the films’ dream-like qualities and the emergence of protagonists with pronounced psychoses: The Big Sleep (1945), Gilda (1946), and The Lady From Shanghai (1947).”
Essentially I don’t see Gilda as a noir as it lacks a noir sensibility: a sense of the chaos and contingency at the edge of existence. I don’t apply a template to films considered noir and I don’t believe noir is a genre. This is a good summary of the debate about the meaning of “film noir” from Encyclopedia of Film Noir (2007) By Geoff Mayer, Brian McDonnell:
“Film noir is more than just 1940s and 1950s crime films infused with a higher quotient of sex and violence than their 1930s counterparts. There is, however, as Andrew Spicer (2002) argues, a prevailing noir myth that “film noir is quintessentially those black and white 1940s films, bathed in deep shadows, which offered a ‘dark mirror’ to American society and questioned the fundamental optimism of the American dream.” There is, of course, some truth contained in this so-called mythology, although it is more complex than this. Film noir is both a discursive construction created retrospectively by critics and scholars in the period after the first wave of noir films (1940–1959) had finished, and also a cultural phenomenon that challenged, to varying degrees, the dominant values and formal patterns of pre-1940 cinema… This delineation between the 1930s and 1940s brings us back to the question, What is film noir? Silver and Ursini (2004) address this issue by dividing noir into separate formal, thematic, and philosophical elements. Out of this, they argue, a movement called “film noir” emerged with the 1941 version of The Maltese Falcon, as discussed previously. However, as Steve Neale (2000, 173) argues, as “a single phenomenon, noir . . . never existed.” Many of its so-called characteristic features, such as the use of voice-over and flashback, the use of high contrast lighting and other expressionist elements, the downbeat endings, and the culture of distrust between men and women, which often manifested itself in the figure of the femme fatale, are “separable features belonging to separable tendencies and trends that traversed a wide variety of genres and cycles in the 1940s and early 1950s” (p. 174). Neale (2000, 174) concludes that [any] attempt to treat these tendencies and trends as a single phenomenon, to homogenise them under a single heading, “film noir,” is therefore bound to lead to incoherence, imprecision, and inconsistency—in the provision of the criteria, in the construction of a corpus, or in almost any interpretation of their contemporary sociocultural significance. Film noir, as we know, is unlike other studies of Hollywood genres or cycles as it was not formed out of the usual sources such as contemporary studio documents. It is, in essence, a discursive critical construction that has evolved over time. However, despite its imprecise parameters and poorly defined sources, it is, as James Naremore (1998, 176) points out, a necessary intellectual category, for if “we abandoned the word noir we would need to find another, no less problematic, means of organizing what we see.” The contemporary term used by reviewers to describe films now classified as noir was melodrama—as Steve Neale (1993) points out in his intensive survey of American trade journals from 1938 to 1960, nearly every film noir was labeled or described in the trade press as some kind of melodrama. This included key films such as The Maltese Falcon (1941), This Gun for Hire, Phantom Lady, The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Killers, Scarlet Street, Detour, Gilda, Raw Deal, Out of the Past, and many other detective, gothic, gangster, or horror films enveloped by the noir label. The reviewers, in an attempt to signify that these films were somehow different from other Hollywood melodramas, often attached the terms psychological,psychiatric, or even neurotic to the melodrama—this included films as diverse as White Heat, This Gun for Hire, My Name Is Julia Ross, The Gangster, High Wall… “
“A review of Gilda without Gilda”?
Lol this is very true. Just trying to mess up the formula a bit. The prankster in me couldn’t help it (though as I mention to Bobby all very accurate unfortunately). Your comment is great as always. I didn’t know Ben Hecht had anything to do with Gilda. I appreciate the information.
I like how you deal with the tonal imbalance of this renowned noir by drawing upon those childhood episodes.
Though its visual components are very evocative, the cast is great and there is a measure of engaging desperation, I find its characterizations markedly soapy and thereby lacking the kind of consistent edge I think this kind of film needs.
Yeah a bit soapy is accurate. Perhaps this is why it comes in at 41 and not 11 or 12 for me.
The noir countdown is only a week old, and already we have a review and comment thread that together can be classified as first-rate. The story of your younger years, sexual innocence and that domestic hypocricy provide readers with an idea of the taboo that was very much part of the cinematic landscape during the time GILDA was made, though sex-starved GIs were a target audience. This is of course Vidor’s one great film, and I’m inclined to believe the homoerotic context was intentional as several here contend. But Hayworth is front and center, and the ordinary plot is pushed to the background as the ferociously charged performance by Rita Hayworth is a cinematic milestone. Her barbaric dance in the nightclub, peeling off her long black gloves, was every GI’s dream. Of course there was an erotic strain throughout and Rudolph Mate’s flistening photography is wholly extraordinary. You are also to be commended Maurizio, for your terrific idea here (I was hooked after two sentences) which I feel worked even better than any straight eview would.
Tony d’Ambra’s spectacular contribution, which includes a fantastic review and a lengthy excerpt from Spicer sheds further light, and typically Ed, Jamie, Jim, Shubhajit and Frank are superb.
I’ve read it was the French who were the first to point out the gay themes (I have to assume it was someone at Cahiers?), I’d love to know who it was and when, and if possible a link to essay (or avenue for me to read it). As I’ve said I adore this film, I’d read anything about it.
I once discussed this with a friend at a bar that denied the gay subtext as well, and after a few beers we both agree to disagree… but not before he relented and conceded to my proposal: you may not think it a gay picture, but at least see it at as an anti-heterosexual one (!), as when we leave the two we can’t really believe that marital bliss is in store for them…
I have eCopies of Cahiers up to 1972. A search found no mention of Gilda, and on-line only passing references.
What I did find was a 2005 interview with French artist Christian Boltanski:
“When I was young, I loved going to the Louvre to find, as they say in the movies, sex and violence. The Louvre is full of naked girls, barbarains with knives and fierce bearded warriors. We forget how much the previous century was indecent. Today in the theater, it is too easy to pour gallons of blood on a naked girl. It is a form of post-surrealism that seems much less interesting than, for example, the eroticism of Gilda taking off her glove.”
Tony you’d love the book I mention earlier (and anyone else interested)
http://www.amazon.com/Matter-Images-Essays-Representations/dp/0415254957/ref=dp_ob_title_bk#reader_0415254957
unfortunately you can’t scroll to page 50 for the essay ‘Homosexuality in Film Noir’, but it’s rather brilliant with a good chunk of it being devoted to Gilda.
Thanks Sam. This indeed has developed into a wonderful thread. Everyone has chimed in with great points. I appreciate the compliments.
Who? or What is this film?
Maurizio Roca,
I’am so unfamiliar with this film?!?
DeeDee
DeeDee the queen of film noir hasn’t heard of GILDA? wtf?
I’m sure you’ve heard of Gilda by Charles Vidor, Dee Dee. I think my essay probably threw you off. As Tony mentions, I review a film without actually talking about it. If you haven’t heard of Gilda then you must forfeit your royal crown until you see it lol…
Or you might be trying some sarcasm that went over my head for a moment.
Omg! (Laughter!!!!) Jamie!!!!
I think I have come across the clef
From a review in the UK Independent on 8-Sep-2010 by Paul Taylor on a revival of Noel Coward’s Design for Living at the Old Vic:
“Groucho Marx came up with one of the best gags about ménages à trois. In Animal Crackers, he ogles a couple of starlets and quips: “We three would make an ideal couple. Pardon me while I have a strange interlude”. He was referring to the epic 1928 drama Strange Interlude by Eugene O’Neill, in which the heroine is protractedly torn between two men. The joke, though, would work even better as a comment on Design for Living, the Noël Coward comedy which premiered in New York five years later [1933], starring the same actress, Lynn Fontanne
The name of the dame in Design for Living? Gilda.
My comment above is waiting moderation but I found the essay:
(here is the excerpt for GILDA):
GILDA
GILDA has a different emphasis. Here the hero (Glenn Ford/Johnny) does have a close relationship with another man (Charles Farrel/Ballen) which is implicitly homosexual, and this does cast doubts on his reaction to the femme fatale (Rita Hayworth/Gilda) and indeed upon the actual “fatal” quality of the latter. The gayness of the Johnny/Ballen relationship is implicit yet definitely enough etched in, even without use of the gay iconography. There is dialogue about the three of us (Johnny, Ballen, and Ballen’s cane) who will never be split up by anything or anyone. Exchanged glances are held longer than glances between non-sexual partners normally are. Ballen “picks up” Johnny for no apparent reason — altruism is not presented as one of his characteristics, and Johnny has no observable talent apart from being pretty. Perhaps I may be forgiven for quoting dubious evidence here, one of the first lines in the film where Johnny says to Ballen, “You must lead a gay life.” Later, even Gilda emphasizes the parallels between herself and Johnny as Ballen’s pick-ups. (9)
When Gilda turns up as Ballen’s wife, Johnny’s reaction can be read as straight jealousy. But the film also provides another reason, which in turn provides a (naïve) explanation for his relationship with Ballen — namely, they are an old affair that somehow went sour. This is why he resents Gilda, but it might also be “why” he is in a gay relationship, that she has put him off women.
Two points amplify this interpretation. First of all, we have to be careful not to assess Gilda’s characterization by today’s standards — perhaps in 1946 her really quite mild promiscuity was shocking. The advertising for GILDA played her up as a bad woman, and Hayworth had made a notable appearance as a femme fatale in BLOOD AND SAND (1941). Yet her image outside of GILDA (1946) is also close to that developed later by Monroe — innocent sexuality or woman as the Life Force. Certainly it is something like this that she embodies in the musicals and her dancing (with its Latin-ness that is carefree but not vulgarly sensual) and perhaps in ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS (1939). There seems to be at least as much carry over of this innocent sexuality as of the femme fatale of film noir in the film’s first shot of her, which in a close-up catches her on a movement, head up, throwing back her hair from across her face, looking and smiling straight past the camera.
Then again, she is given the song, “Put the Blame on Mame,” to sing quietly in the deserted night club to the sympathetic and philosophical men’s room attendant. Here, the scene depicts her friendship with a man who repeatedly stresses his distance from and contempt for the luxury milieu of the nightclub, with the quiet reflectiveness of the setting and her delivery of the song (as she accompanies herself on a guitar), and of course the words of the song which admittedly ambiguously criticize the way that men always put the blame on women’s sexuality for natural disasters. All these imply that Gilda is far from fatal and that there is something “pathological” in Johnny’s soon violent response to her. (However, as the song suggests, his “pathology” may be a typical response.)
The second amplification of this interpretation occurs after the apparent death of Ballen in the exploding airplane. Johnny and Gilda marry, but it is clear that the marriage is not consummated. The labyrinthine structures of the film have hitherto concentrated on Ballen, the mirror-maze effects of the night club, and the impenetrability of his secret (tungsten) sadomasochism in heterosexual relationships. These structures hover around this sense of violence and have already been hinted at in the image of Gilda with a whip at the Mardi Gras ball and in the character of Ballen, with his phallic knife/cane, his thin-lipped, scarred face, and his references to the excitement of cruelty and “other strong emotions.” What GILDA seems to point to is something that most films noir try to keep at bay — that all sexuality or all male sexuality is sick. Where most films noir evoke sick sexuality everywhere except in the hero, GILDA has him caught between gayness, in no way presented positively, and sadomasochism.
Of the films noir I have seen, only GILDA questions the adequacy of male sexuality. Such a questioning is perhaps implicit in others — with McPherson’s obsession with the “dead” Laura, for instance, or the dark sadistic side of Dix in IN A LONELY PLACE (though the sexuality of this is not explored). But usually male sexual adequacy is ensured because the hero’s adequacy is taken as read but not demonstrated. Heroes just are sexually adequate unless we are told to the contrary. And to deflect any doubts that linger, we have such unambiguously sick images of frustration and maliciousness as the femmes fatales, nymphos, queers and dykes.
complete here, just terrific IMHO.
http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC16folder/HomosexFilmNoir.html
Good stuff guys. You both get a gold star.
Yes Jamie, great stuff. How is this for great dialog:
Gilda: If you’re worried about Johnny Farrell, don’t be. I hate him!
Ballin Mundson: And he hates you. That’s very apparent. But hate can be a very exciting emotion. Very exciting. Haven’t you noticed that?
Gilda: You make it s…
Ballin Mundson: There is a heat in it, that one can feel. Didn’t you feel it tonight?
Gilda: No.
Ballin Mundson: I did. It warmed me. Hate is the only thing that has ever warmed me.
I got hold of my copy of Borde & Chaumeton’s A panorama of American film noir, 1941-1953 (Paris 1955) and scanned an equally compelling analysis which skirts the homoerotic and goes in a different direction (pp 54-56):
“Among the major productions of 1946 Charles Vidor’s Gilda immediately stands out, albeit the film was condemned by the critics and misunderstood by the public, who turned it into a success for reasons at odds with its true qualities. Entirely bathed in a specifically noir atmosphere, this opus remains, with John Stahl’s Leave Her to Heaven, perhaps the most magisterial lesson of applied psychoanalysis on the screen.
Here Is a brief summary of the scenario: a young American hooked on gambling, Johnny Farrell, is saved from certain death by a gentleman night owl, Ballin Mundson, the owner of a redoubtable sword stick and an aficionado of handsome young men. He offers Johnny a lucrative job in the wealthy circle he controls, advising him not to forget that women and business are two essentially different things. After a brief absence, he returns, married to Gilda, a magnificent young woman who is none other than Johnny’s former mistress. Desirous of renewing the affair and forsaken by her husband, Gilda attempts to sow discord between the two men, since Johnny doesn’t want her, and she begins flirting outrageously. But Mundson, mixed up in a dark tale of tungsten dealing and Nazi espionage, spectacularly disappears, while faking suicide—by airplane! Johnny takes the place of the dead man in his business affairs as well as in his private life and weds Gilda. But his marriage remains unconsummated because he can’t rid himself of the obscure hold Mundson had on him in life. Perhaps Johnny also believes that his suicide is due to his wife’s unfaithfulness. And he doesn’t hesitate to persecute Gilda, to lock her up, assuaging his own hatred and gaining revenge on his benefactor at one and the same time. At the end of her tether, the unsatisfied belle flaunts herself in public in a compensatory, intensely erotic display. Faced with this spectacle, Johnny finally becomes conscious of his virility. He gives the alluring Gilda a resounding slap and hands Mundson’s secret papers over to the police. The pseudo-dead man’s final, brief apparition (“phantasm” might be the word here), come to settle accounts and claim what’s his (using the threat of his maleficent stick), a no less rapid dispatching of this now inoffensive ghost to the nether regions, and Johnny will at last be able to find happiness with Gilda….
This apparently disconcerting plot is often, for the person who knows how to look, studied in the extreme. It concretizes and “dramatizes,” as in a dream, a series of affective automatisms. Whence its extremely agreeable mechanical side, accentuated still further by the icy elegance of the characters, the Baroque sumptuousness of the sets (in the grand opera or 1920s cinema style), and Rudolph Mate’s ostentatious framing of the image.
Charles Vidor has managed to excellently limn in the umpteen wrangles of Johnny Farrell, torn between Gilda and her husband, who’s clearly a father substitute for him. In this impressive illustration of the Oedipus complex, the director has laid bare the obscure ties that bind the two men, thus evoking, perhaps without realizing it, the complex behavior of children in relation to their own father, something which remains, whatever one says, one of the least popularized aspects of psychoanalysis.
Choice tableaux are not lacking during the course of the film. One sequence describes Johnny’s fitful sleep as he tosses and turns in his bed. All of a sudden, like the very emanation of his semi-nightmare, a woman’s voice is heard in the dark…. For a moment he believes it’s an hallucination. Then he hastily gets dressed and discovers, in the half-light of the big, empty room of the gambling joint, in the midst of the stacked chairs, with a member of the kitchen staff for audience, the insomniac Gilda seated on the edge of a table, her long legs crossed at the thigh, who is singing a lullaby while accompanying herself on the guitar.
Another justly acclaimed scene: to the rhythm of an evocative swaying of the hips, Gilda peels off, with studied slowness, the black stockings that serve her as gloves,1 revealing the dazzling whiteness of her arms to the spectator. And her voice, the extremely inviting voice of a sensual woman ready to surrender herself, marking her phrasing with the disordered shaking of her magnificent head of hair, sings the henceforth famous “Put the Blame on Mame.”
The sculptural shoulders of Rita Hayworth effortlessly bear the whole weight of the film. The new Lola-Lola of the “atomic age,” she is the worthy representative of a certain American eroticism. Her extravagant clothes have been conceived with an intention that Alexandre Astruc has perfectly captured: “the black silk sheath dresses, the gloves stretching up to the elbows and the cuir-bouilli boots have a precise function: they strip the woman of all human character and turn her into an object.” A statue of flesh escaped from some luxuriant dream, Gilda moves around behind the grilles, imposts, and heavy curtains of casinos more closed off than harems.
One sequence, as symbolic as you’d wish, has as its backdrop the carnival that floods the nocturnal streets of Buenos Aires, and in which one divines, beneath the masks, the paroxysm of passions contained too long, passions that clash and meld.”
Brilliant,
“The sculptural shoulders of Rita Hayworth effortlessly bear the whole weight of the film. The new Lola-Lola of the “atomic age,” she is the worthy representative of a certain American eroticism. Her extravagant clothes have been conceived with an intention that Alexandre Astruc has perfectly captured: “the black silk sheath dresses, the gloves stretching up to the elbows and the cuir-bouilli boots have a precise function: they strip the woman of all human character and turn her into an object.” A statue of flesh escaped from some luxuriant dream, Gilda moves around behind the grilles, imposts, and heavy curtains of casinos more closed off than harems.”
Is what Dyer is alluding to when he says “What GILDA seems to point to is something that most films noir try to keep at bay — that all sexuality or all male sexuality is sick. Where most films noir evoke sick sexuality everywhere except in the hero, GILDA has him caught between gayness, in no way presented positively, and sadomasochism.”
and then what I mean when I say, “but not before he relented and conceded to my proposal: you may not think it’s a gay picture, but at least see it as an anti-heterosexual one (!), as when we leave the two we can’t really believe that marital bliss is in store for them…”
It’s painting the film in many lights of various sexualities, but one thing I certainly take from the film (and why I love it so) is sex and courting is a constant oscillation of the master/servant dynamic, a dynamic I personally want no part of.
Segue then back to our discussion on THIS GUN FOR HIRE, viewed with this dynamic the killers personal isolation and motives are that much more powerful, he’s a deeply emotional, caring person, one unable to coexist intimately with others.
_ _ _
I also view the setting in the beginning of GILDA (the bowery/docks meeting) as incredibly coded in male homosexual lingo. Homosexual art of the time uses locals of this seedy offbeat fashion as places men cowering from public attention can meet each other to indulge in deciding who they are. It’s the sort of stuff Trocchi’s CAIN’S BOOK deals with when it’s discussing sex (Most of the other times it’s talking about existential drug use of course), as does Genet’s QUERELLE.
Jamie said,”DeeDee the queen of film noir hasn’t heard of GILDA? wtf?”
Maurizio Roca said,”I’m sure you’ve heard of Gilda by Charles Vidor, Dee Dee.
Hi! Maurizio Roca and Jamie…
…Oh! yes, I have purchased a copy Of and watched Charles Vidor’s 1946 film Gilda on many occasions.
Maurizio Roca said, “I think my essay probably threw you off. As Tony mentions, I review a film without actually talking about it…”
Oh! no, your essay didn’t throw me off at all…it was filled with an interesting anecdote about your childhood, humour, and then segued from your personal life experience to discuss the 1946 film “Gilda”…Great stuff!
Thanks, for sharing!
Jamie said,”DeeDee the queen of film noir…”
Maurizio Roca said,”If you haven’t heard of Gilda then you must forfeit your royal crown until you see it lol…”
First Of all, I just consider myself a princess Of film noir and “methinks” that my crown is safe as I practice my… royal wave. (Laughter!)
Maurizio Roca said, “Or you might be trying some sarcasm that went over my head for a moment.”
Maurizio,
Good thing that you experienced that moment…Just tap my
name and you, and Jamie, will be shocked!
DeeDee
[Cont...]
“Rita Hayworth dances to certainly remains one of the most iconic cinematic moments.”
“But Hayworth is front and center, and the ordinary plot is pushed to the background as the ferociously charged performance by Rita Hayworth is a cinematic milestone. Her barbaric dance in the nightclub, peeling off her long black gloves, was every GI’s dream…”
“A review of Gilda without Gilda?”
Another good book to read is author Lee Horsley’s The Noir Thriller even though actress Rita Hayworth, is on the cover this book focus on a wide spectrum Of topics from film noir films, film noir directors to mystery writers such as: Hammett, Goodis, and Chandler, etc,etc, etc…
A very interesting book…indeed!
What a very interesting thread too!
Actress Jane Russell, Pass Away at the age Of 89 years old
I would be re-missed if I didn’t mention this actress who passed away yesterday…Actress Jane Russell, left her footprint in Film noir: Macao, His Kind Of Woman, The Las Vegas Story, and in musicals, dramas and comedies. May she RIP…
DeeDee
Maurizio, I’m just now catching up with the countdown in anticipation of the top 5. I had a blast reading this; the connection to Gilda may be a stretch – only in the end was I reminded you were reviewing that film, until then I had it my head this was a piece on “Laura” for some reason, haha – but so what. Great stories.
Laura comes much later as it is a much better film overall. I guess my analogy is a clear stretch, but it was just an attempt to shake up the countdown formula and have some fun. Glad you enjoyed it Joel.