Rating: 4/5
— I'll do the same for you sometime — Save my life? — Give you a cigarette
Gilda is a movie where the subtext is the plot — who Ballin, Johnny, and Gilda are to each other is never explicitly stated. These relationships develop behind closed doors, and we only have the innuendos and suggestions to fill out the difference. Otherwise, it’s a pretty rudimentary plot about a casino owner who has some illegal side dealings
The two men, Johnny and Ballin, are involved in some way — it’s the queer power dynamic we see in movies like Point Break, where love may not be a part of it, but sex and attraction are at play. The film begins with Ballin cruising the docks — why there, except to meet a guy like Johnny?
Gilda and Johnny are both playing the same game: becoming “kept” to try and make their lives easier, but learning that jumping into bed with someone with power brings new difficulties. Johnny fights to protect Ballin, and Johnny is happiest when kept by Ballin
A female-produced movie — this film was Virginia Van Upp’s assignment to make a Rita Hayworth vehicle — Gilda gets dimension that makes her appealing, not just as a sex symbol, but as a complex and vulnerable person — not quite a femme fatale, but not innocent either
As for the film itself, it is overall fantastic — I do think several parts drag and that some of the choices made near the end are odd — but the performances are spectacular, and the filmmaking is sharp and meticulous. As you can tell, it’s a movie that’s more fun to talk about than to watch
My favorite innuendos
- The cane that shoots a blade — “my little friend,” as Ballin calls it
- Johnny holds a cigarette lighter at the hip, forcing Gilda to bend down and take a long drag on her cigarette to light it
- Both Gilda and Johnny use the line, “I was born last night when you met me,” on Ballin
Stray Thoughts
- Thanks to Eddie Muller, whose writing on the queer subtext in Gilda helped me formulate my thoughts on it
- How many hours to get Rita Hayworth’s hair to look like that? Baz Lurhmann copied that style for Nichole Kidman for Moulin Rouge — and said that the hair is a big reason why movies like these are so expensive to make
- Hayworth makes zero effort at pretending to play the guitar, and I love it
- Scorsese compares this to Pandora’s Box, the way Gilda is both guilty and innocent — aware of her power over men, yet cannot avoid drawing them in. It’s a genuine coincidence that I watched them so close together