A casino owner strides into his new wife’s bedroom, closely trailed by his right-hand man. “Gilda, are you decent?” he calls out. “Me?” she replies teasingly, appearing into view as she tosses her hair back in one of the most famous character introductions in cinematic history. It’s easy to understand why one of these men lost his head and married her the day after he met her, and the other, despite their estrangement, hasn’t been able to put her out of his mind for a minute. Of the pairings in this precarious love triangle, one is married but has nothing in common, and other projects a mutual hatred but are actually kindred spirits.
The luminous Gilda (Rita Hayworth) swans around the Buenos Aires joint, inciting jealousy and lust in her husband Ballin Mundson (George Macready) and former lover Johnny Farrell (Glenn Ford), toying with the patrons, well aware of her effect on them. And yet Charles Vidor’s 1946 noir locates her loneliness under bright casino lights and in luxuriously furnished rooms.
