Right, I have now watched 'Gilda', a piece that many, many critics constantly cite as a classic example of film noir.
And I have to admit that my honest response to that is 'Eh?'
The reason for this is that it turns out in the end that Gilda herself is NOT the nasty, lying, devious, selfish, lustful, hypocritical femme fatale she's been making herself out to be for most of the story.
She is in fact a nice, respectable, honest, worthy, all-American girl who has just been putting on this act in order to pull the fellow that she was in love with all along.
Never mind the fact that she married her first husband because she needed security in the form of his money.
Forget about the fact that she lost no time in scoping out a possible third husband when she thought she'd managed to get shot of the second one.
And it was fine her conducting a rather rabid flirtation (to say the least) with the second husband whilst the first one was still in the frame - because he was a tough-minded all-American guy and the hero of the story.
I can only presume that this completely schizophrenic set of 'conventional' moral standards must have been imposed on the film either by the studio moguls desperate to preserve Rita Hayworth's pristine image (and thus keep box office takings healthily up), or the Hays Production Code was still in full swing at this point.
All I can say is what a complete and utter disappointment the ending turned out to be.
At least I didn't waste any money on buying or hiring out this DVD, let alone going to see it at the cinema.
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