Rita, Gilda & Salome

Occasionally I have company in my morning ritual of coffee and paper in the 'Office'. I did yesterday and was told to watch out for the movie 'Gilda', on late in the evening (nearly all worthwhile films are only put on late night here in Spain). So I stayed up for 2 extra hours to see it, again, for must have been the 3rd time if not the 4th!! Mind you, over a period of 10 or more years. And, I found that I still prefer the oldies than a lot of the present day films.

If you, like me, appreciate a good story, excellent acting, and terrific direction, beautiful music and atmospheric photography and settings, you will like this one too. It's made in 1946, a skillfully put together romantic melodrama that has since been classified as film noir, and justifiably became a mythical reference - amongst other reasons, for the glamorous composition of Rita Hayworth, anthological (her and her long gloves), singing 'Put the blame on Mame', the most famous, insinuated striptease in the film history. Nearly as famous is the slap on her face proffered by Glen Ford.

'Gilda' has it's morbid side, contemplated not as a classic melodrama of a typical love triangle (2 men in love with the same woman), but in it's underground slope: the ambiguous homosexual current that runs between Ford and the proprietor of the casino, an extraordinary George Macready. The flaming chemistry between Hayworth and Ford, which had already sparked in 'The lady in question' under the direction of the same director here, Charles Vidor, continued to spark and later on, in lesser degree, in 'The loves of Carmen' and 'The lady of Trinidad', going on after this to collaborate together in 1966, in 'The money trap'.

Each time I see an old film of Rita Hayworth, I almost always immediately recall her very, very sensual dance of the 7 veils in the film 'Salome', with 'Gilda' only as the 2nd reminder of her. Don't miss that dance if you should be lucky enough to come across it (not so much the movie, just the dance). Although many beautiful actresses and marvellous dancers have performed the same dance, nobody but nobody had ever come even close to Rita's incredibly sexy interpretation. I believe probably never again to be achieved by any other.

Tags:gilda,Salome,ritahayworth

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