‎Gilda (1946) directed by Charles Vidor • Reviews, film + cast • Letterboxd

Gilda

1946 Directed by Charles Vidor

There NEVER was a woman like Gilda!

Just arrived in Argentina, small-time crooked gambler Johnny Farrell is saved from a gunman by sinister Ballin Mundson, who later makes Johnny his right-hand man. But their friendship based on mutual lack of scruples is strained when Mundson returns from a trip with a wife: the supremely desirable Gilda, whom Johnny once knew and learned to hate. The relationship of Johnny and Gilda, a battlefield of warring emotions, becomes even more bizarre after Mundson disappears...

Rita Hayworth Glenn Ford George Macready Joseph Calleia Steven Geray Joe Sawyer Gerald Mohr Mark Roberts Ludwig Donath Donald Douglas

110 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by Dragonknight ★★★★ 5

Film #25 of Project 40

”I make my own luck.”

An under-appreciated noir which instead of the gloomy streets of an American metropolis happens in the glamorous casinos of Argentina with a triangle of mysterious characters who seemingly have no past. Charles Vidor is the director behind this unpredictable story of lonely men who have nowhere to go and tempting women who look tantalizing on the surface but are lost and crushed deep down, it features Rita Hayworth as the impeccably seductive Gilda and along with the doubtful Glenn Ford they build a relationship filled with sexual tension, uncontrollable passion and dangerous hatred. Gilda mainly evolves around mysteries surrounding almost every aspect of the story, it never gives us clear-cut…
Review by Mike D'Angelo ★★★★

80/100

A.V. Club review. For someone with little to no rep among auteurists, Vidor directs the hell out of this; the way he shoots Macready's Ballin alone deserves a visual essay—not least for the truly extraordinary shot I reference in the review, which you can currently see from 26:42 to 27:14 here (albeit in the wrong aspect ratio, which diminishes it slightly).
Review by Thomas Ringdal ★★½ 2

Noirch #9

Rita Hayworth.
Need a reason to watch this? Rita Hayworth.
Are there other reasons? No. Not really.
I was introduced to this film via Shawshank, and that scene, you know the scene, sits quite comfortably on top of all others in Gilda. It really is something.

Straight women must get absolutely nothing out of this....
Glenn Ford is particularly unbearable as Johnny. The smirking-like-Jerry Seinfeld, misogynistic little twerp of a protagonist, also responsible for the awful narration.
And then there's the plot......wtf? Tungsten, world domination, nazis, spies, a cop that looks to be more interested in grooming his moustache than capturing criminals, tedious song numbers, the melodramatic will they won't they, ahh, who gives a shit really story and a flat ending.
Review by brat pitt ★★★

when gilda is offscreen: 😴👎🏽😴
when gilda is onscreen: 😊🎉😊
when gilda is dancing: 😍❤️😍
Review by Truman Segal ★★★★

clearly a major inspiration for Casino.

what a lady.

great great great dialogue.
Review by Savannah Oakes ★★★★½ 2

"Hate can be a very exciting emotion."

Oh boy, this movie was amazing. Probably one of my favorite film-noirs, mostly because it was not very film-noir-like. It has the brooding man who does a lot of voiceover, the dame, the shadows, the crime but it felt a lot less so. Perhaps it was because the story was a lot less dependent on the narration, which I greatly appreciated. It did a lot of showing instead of telling. This script is one of the best I’ve seen come out of the 40s. If I explained the plot to someone it would come out as a basic love-triangle, crime movie, but from the very opening scene this film is dealing with a…

Recent reviews

Review by Andrew Scott

w/ commentary by Richard Schickel
Review by Drblove ★★★★★

Gilda

Initially, I was intending to give this film 3.5-4 stars. I wasn’t very intrigued by Gilda as a character and I tried to ignore that character as much as I can.

I guess I am fairly lucky to have access to interviews and analyses that are part of the supplements feature in the Gilda bluray disc.

I have to say that after watching the supplements and re-watching some scenes from Gilda, I have a new appreciation to the film. I feel insulted but at the time mesmerized by the level thought that went into hiding the subtext of the message the film was trying to convey.

It is for that reason I am very appreciative of the film now that I understand it better and it had certainly earned my respect and my 5 stars!
Review by LLFIN ★★★

10 years since I saw this for the first time and I do think it does deserve at least three stars. For the lady alone...
Review by Ilaria ★★★★

Rita Hayworth, one of the most amazing gift the world gave us.
Watch this movie, love it, cherish it.
Review by Alison ★★★

this movie was good, except for how he treated her like shit the entire time and then they pretended that what she did was equally bad
Review by The Great Owl ★★★★★

Johnny Farrell, played by Glenn Ford, is a drifter who finds himself on the fast track when he is hired by a casino owner, played by George Macready. In one of the most iconic introduction scenes in movie history, Farrell meets his employer's new wife, Gilda, who is played by the one and only Rita Hayworth. Unbeknownst to her husband, Gilda has a previous history with Farrell. Her husband, however, has deadly secrets of his own.

Gilda is a noir masterpiece, and it's also one of the most smolderingly sexy films in the history of cinema. No other actress looked quite like Rita Hayworth at the time, but, more importantly, no other actress *moved* quite like her. It's impossible to…
Review by halfshellgirl ★★★★★

Absolutely loved it. Rita Hayworth is the perfect inspiration for Jessica Rabbit -her sex appeal is just unbearable- and the love story between the two main characters is one of the realest ever seen in movies.
Wonderful score. She sings like an angel and dances like a mermaid.
Review by opulentfilm ★★★★★

Let me start this by saying that this is my number one favorite movie of all time. Rita Hayworth is stunning and just magnetic in this performance. "I love when she does that shit with her hair."
Review by Dan Hassler-Forest ★★★★

Who cares if the script is shoddy if everything looks like this?