Review of Gilda (1946) by Jo J — 28 Mar 2010

Two jealous guys and one ditsy lady.

*** This review may contain spoilers ***.

'Johnny' Farrell is a small-time gambler/card cheat who finds himself being robbed at gunpoint just after leaving a game of dice with some soldiers in Buenos Aires. A weird guy with a German accent, Ballin Mundson, just happens to be strolling along down by the docks and saves Johnny by whipping out a sharp knife hidden inside his cane. Thus begins the very strange and not all that entertaining pseudo-noir, 'Gilda'. Mundson hands Johnny his card and invites him to play at his casino. Before you know it, Mundson hires Johnny as the manager after Johnny convinces him that he can use his skills as a crooked gambler to ferret out customers bent on cheating the house. Mundson introduces Johnny to his wife, Gilda, played by Rita Hayworth. Gilda can't stand Mundson but obviously married him for his money.

The only thing that is truly understandable in this movie is Gilda's disdain for Mundson who is continually trying to suck up to her acting like a besotted 16 year old wuss. Mundson's jealousy knows no bounds and it's this jealousy that defines his character?so much so that the character becomes totally one-note. There is so much of Mundson's jealousy we can take before saying, 'enough already'. Fortunately for the film-goer, Mundson disappears halfway through the movie, only to return at the end.

Meanwhile, without providing any back story, Johnny and Gilda knew each other before. When they meet again they have a thorough disdain for one another. Johnny tells Gilda, "I hate you", Gilda tells Johnny, "I hate you" and one of them (or maybe both, I can't remember) slaps the other in the face. Like Mundson's jealousy, the disdain is unrelenting but at a certain point they declare their love for one another, end up in a passionate embrace and before you know it, get married. Finally, closet nice-guy Johnny starts morphing into Mundson (after Johnny takes over the casino following Mundson's apparent suicide, nose-diving his single pilot aircraft into the ocean)and becomes jealous of Gilda's new singles life. Gilda tells Johnny that dating other men is just an act for Johnny to pay more attention to her but Johnny won't buy it. He becomes so jealous that he has one of his henchmen at the casino physically remove every new date from Gilda's proximity causing her to flee to Montevideo where she meets a new man, a lawyer who convinces her to return home and get an annulment. When she returns, she finds out that her new boyfriend, the lawyer, was paid by Johnny to get her to return. Gilda is shattered when Johnny tells her that annulments are not legally valid in Buenos Aires (unfortunately Gilda is not a law school graduate!).

Just like Mundson, Johnny's jealousy toward Gilda becomes tiresome. But unlike Mundson, Johnny's 'true feelings' toward Gilda cannot be kept down. He somehow realizes that he's been the biggest heel all along and once again falls for Gilda (please don't ask me what motivates these sudden reversals in the characters' behavior). Just as Johnny changes his mind about Gilda (again) Mundson returns and in a jealous rage attempts to murder both Johnny and Gilda. Mundson is struck down by the kindly bathroom attendant who presciently has referred to Johnny as a 'peasant' from the beginning of the film. The police inspector does his Captain Renault imitation from Casablanca by stepping in and hinting that Johnny and Gilda will not be charged for Mundson's death, that the official cause of death is still a suicide and not to matter anyway, it was a justifiable homicide.

There is also a subplot in 'Gilda' that is just as confusing as the love triangle. Mundson has cornered the Tungsten market and double-crossed two Germans he knew during the War who show up at the Casino claiming they are the rightful leaders of a cartel. We never find out anything about the Germans except that Mundson ends up killing one of them and that's why he has to flee (oh there's another weird guy, a businessman who attempts to shoot Mundson at the casino after Mundson won't let him do business with a member of his cartel. The weird guy is unable to kill Mundson so he ends up shooting himself). As one poster aptly put it here, Gilda is a 'poor man's Casablanca'. In some ways, Gilda is so bad that it's actually somewhat entertaining. One can actually sit back and enjoy all the full blown histrionics. But ultimately none of the jealous machinations of the characters are ever sufficiently explained nor are the reversals?the odd changes of heart where the lovers are reconciled. Gilda is a story where the characters don't earn our respect?they're locked in a pointless battle simply designed to titillate the masses of people soon to become addicted to daytime soap operas on television in the 1950s.