Gilda (4K Restoration)

PG110 min

Synopsis

A small-time gambler hired to work in a Buenos Aires casino learns that his ex-lover is married to his employer.

Stalwarts of the Columbia star stable Glenn Ford and the flame-haired bombshell of her generation Rita Hayworth act together in a vicious love triangle with Hayworth as the sexually voracious wife to a shady smuggler and Ford as her infatuated former flame.

From the moment Gilda bats her cartoon eyelashes and insists she’s ‘decent’, she became a mega-star, even painted on the side of an A-bomb dropped at Bikini Atoll. The combination of sensuality and violence is well-suited to film noir, but GILDA itself is a story of masochism and romantic cruelty, where both parties are willing to suffer and cause maximum hurt through stymied, frustrated desire. As Gilda hisses into Johnny (Ford)’s ear, ‘I hate you so much I might die from it!'