DVD Review: Criterion takes a closer look at ‘Gilda’
Rita Hayworth was a star before “Gilda” (1946), but “Gilda” solidified her on-screen image. (“Every man I have ever known has fallen in love with Gilda and awakened with me,” she allegedly said.) The film’s sexual iconography stayed with her through the rest of her career.
In subject matter and characters, “Gilda” is pure film noir, but I used to find the visual style too glossy to really qualify. One of the advantages of the new restored Criterion Blu-ray is the quality of the black-and-white (and lots of gray) cinematography, which proves how wrong I was.
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Hayworth plays a “woman with a past” — we never know the details — who marries a wealthy Nazi fellow traveler (George Macready), only to discover that his “right-hand man” (Glenn Ford) is her old boyfriend, the love of her life. The two now despise each other in the manner that only people in love can. (Note that the setup and many other elements are similar to Orson Welles’ “Lady from Shanghai,” which came out two years later and was clearly an attempt to recapture the same magic.)
Extras ported over from an earlier edition include a half-hour biographical retrospective from the ‘60s TV show “Hollywood and the Stars”; comments from Martin Scorsese and Baz Luhrman (with Luhrman getting the lion’s share of screen time); and an informative anecdotal commentary track from Richard Schickel.
Newly added is a tremendous 20-minute interview with Eddie Muller, currently the leading film noir critic/scholar/enthusiast. Muller focuses on the movie’s most interesting element: The characters’ actions and emotions only really make sense if we assume that Ford is Macready’s right-hand man in more ways than one. Thanks to the Hollywood Production Code, the sexual/romantic aspects of their relationship can never be mentioned, merely implied. Indeed, the movie just drips with juicy innuendo.
Gilda (Criterion, Blu-ray, $39.95; DVD, $29.95)
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ANDY KLEIN is the film critic for Marquee. He can also be heard on “FilmWeek” on KPCC-FM (89.3).