"Gilda" (1946, Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford)

Putting aside my crush on Glenn Ford -- one of those regular-guy, low-wattage but high-charisma stars I'm so attracted to, like Gene Hackman and Ross Martin (it's a mystery to me why those Victorian ladies were attracted to Jim West when Artemus Gordon was right there. Must've been the tight pants) -- I was enthralled by this movie. It's grown-up storytelling at a high pitch, a story about adults and their complexities that is made by and for adults. Rita Hayworth was in her 20s at the time, but she plays Gilda as a full-grown woman aware of the consequences of her risky manipulations and willing (even eager) to take responsibility for them.

What a shock that is after being inundated with today's reductive version of womanhood; girl-stars and their coy, teasing, woman-child antics. Woman afraid to grow up. Desperate Housewives trying to freeze themselves in their own pasts. And too often these women are paired with grown boy-heroes who just want people to say, "Yes, Harrison. You've still got it."

Our heroes, Gilda and Johnny (of course, "Johnny"), are unscrupulous, self-absorbed, and compromised, but they're also vulnerable, loyal, and driven by love. They're drifting along riding on the coattails of questionable people, and they pay for their dissolution. They accept the consequences of their own actions and learn from their mistakes. Like adults. No phony fairy-tale ending where the Pretty Woman lets the wealthy prince whisk her away from all this – "all this” being the running of her own life and her growth as a person. What kind of shitty fairy tale is that?

I prefer Gilda, the beautiful heroine who seems to be a manipulative slut, and Johnny, the handsome young prince who works as a goon for a mobster. They're in love. They hurt each other terribly. I won't tell you whether they live happily ever after or not, but what a great ride it is to get to find out.

"Gilda" is funny, tense, suspenseful, intriguing, and entertaining. It was made in 1946. Maybe World War II made Americans temporarily smarter about themselves and about the perils of the worlds both inside and outside your door. They didn't look for easy answers; "Gilda” certainly doesn't provide any. Too bad the Iraq War hasn't done the same for us.