Drugstore.com Coupons
How others will see it. This is an entertaining movie with plenty of Rita Hayworth, who gets to sing (although dubbed) and dance, as well as flirt outrageously. Hayworth was and is the attraction, but it's reliable Glenn Ford that hogs all the screen time. Those who like detective stories or crime dramas won't mind, since a voiceover from Ford would be all that is needed to make it a dead ringer for a Raymond Chandler work, despite its Argentine casino setting.
Men can identify with Ford, and women can cheer for Hayworth. If one chooses to, the obvious holes in the story can be overlooked, including the preposterously happy ending which tidily wraps up all loose ends.
How I felt about it. Unluckily for them, film critics must look beyond intended emotions, to evaluate their themes and their validity. Gilda has the sheen of a detective story, with Ford as the streetwise but honest gumshoe, although technically, he's a reformed con artist running a casino front for an illegal cartel.
But Gilda is actually a love story. Oh, I realize that detective stories have their bad girls who seek redemption through our hero, or perhaps they're good girls in trouble who need the hero to get them out of it. Or, maybe, they're truly bad girls out to use our hero. In any event, they simply provide the motive and flesh out the story.
With Gilda, however, the relationship is the story. On the other hand, the curious relationship between Ford and his frosty benefactor never really makes any sense. Would a man hire a small time con artist who can't take care of himself? Wouldn't he have a manager already?
And once he figures out that Ford and Hayworth were past lovers and "hate" each other, why would he throw them together? And what successful businessman marries a woman the day after he meets her? When he comes back from the dead, with the intention of killing Hayworth and Ford, how will this enable him to get back to his real purpose of running the cartel? He can't run the cartel if he's dead, and if he's alive, he's the major suspect in their deaths.
Never mind that Ford realizes he loves the hot and cold Rita just in time for the final reel to end. What about his thirst for power? The cartel, the casino, mean nothing to him? And won't Gilda continue to cheat, or at least pretend to, just to make him mad? They're both so good at it.