A hothouse melodrama that gets dizzy from its own steam, Gilda nonetheless transfixes thanks to Rita Hayworth in the title role. Unfortunately, she’s not on screen enough, and is sometimes misused when she is. The “hero” here, instead, is Glenn Ford’s Johnny Farrell, a con man who winds up running a South American casino, only to have his past catch up with him when his ruthless boss (George Macready) suddenly marries Hayworth’s Gilda. It’s tempting to say that Hayworth only speaks in innuendo, but that’s crediting her with too much tact – there is never any doubt that she’s only talking about one thing. The star tosses her hair incessantly – it should really qualify as another character – and does what can only be called a clothed striptease to “Put the Blame on Mame.” At first, Farrell is supposed to be helpless in the face of all of this, but Ford plays the part a bit too truly. In the last third, when Farrell turns Gilda into a subservient victim, we don’t believe a minute of it.
