With a sensuous flip of her hair, Rita Hayworth announced herself as a major talent — and Hollywood bombshell — in Charles Vidor’s celebrated Gilda, a film noir remembered as much for its leading star as its unforgettable musical performances and deviant exploration of love and violence. When street gambler Johnny Farrell (Glenn Ford) meets kingpin Ballin Mundson (George Macready), he convinces Mundson to hire him as manager at his glitzy Buenos Aires casino and keep watch over Mundson’s new wife, Gilda (Hayworth), who also happens to be Farrell’s spited ex-lover. Threading lust and hate through the same eyehole, Gilda is cast as both a femme fatale and sexual pawn as she finds herself in the middle of an uneasy love triangle. Provocative and at turns confounding, Gilda was nonetheless fiercely embraced by audiences whose love for Hayworth made her a superstar, catapulting her to later films like The Lady from Shanghai, and cementing Gilda and its lead role as forever iconic.
