What is essentially a very simple story ends up becoming a musical classic in this Columbia musical from the days of World War II that had soldiers clamoring for Rita Hayworth photos and home front movie audiences standing in line for hours to see. Even if she had never played Gilda, Hayworth would have entered screen immortality for the magnetism she possesses in this movie, in addition to the two films she had earlier starred with opposite Fred Astaire.
While Rita had been seen on screen in color before ("Blood and Sand", "My Gal Sal"), Technicolor really falls in love with her in this outstanding musical. She plays a modeling hopeful who goes to the top of her profession after becoming a successful musical star, and ends up engaged to a stuffy heir (Lee Bowman) to a fortune. In denial that she's really in love with hoofer Gene Kelly, Hayworth prepares for a life of boredom while deep down inside, she's anxious to dance again down the street with him and his low-class friend (an amusing Phil Silvers) and "Make Way for Tomorrow".
With Jerome Kern's former lyric writing partner Oscar Hammerstein II now busy with Richard Rodgers and Ira Gershwin's music writing brother George deceased, the two joined forces to write an original music score that has been called one of the best original song scores written for the screen. Hayworth, as usual, is dubbed, and performs an ancient musical hall song (complete with a dress covered in huge polka dots) bemoaning the fate of a heroine whose potential mother-in-law openly disapproves of her, and dances joyously with Kelly and Silvers to the optimistic "Make Way For Tomorrow", then flings herself down a curvy run-way to the magnificent "Long Ago and Far Away". Kelly gets some neat special effects, dancing with a transparent version of himself, in "Alter Ego Dance".
Another highlight is the fashion show "Cover Girl" number which resembles "Easter Parade's" "The Girl I Love is on a Magazine Cover" and "Beautiful Girls" from "Singin' in the Rain" featuring live girls either on calendars or magazine covers. In fantastic support are Eve Arden as the sardonic magazine executive secretary who becomes Rita's confidante, Leslie Brooks as Rita's chorus girl chum, and Otto Kruger as a father figure in Rita's life. In short, this is a movie about Rita, aka Rusty, aka Maribelle. There's also a delightful cameo by Jack Norton, the tea-totaler actor who plays a drunk delightfully joining in Gene, Phil and Rita's big number together.
This is a musical and visual delight from start to finish, probably Columbia's most popular film of the 1940's along with "The Jolson Story" and one of the factors that moved the studio from the "B's" to the "A's".
While Rita had been seen on screen in color before ("Blood and Sand", "My Gal Sal"), Technicolor really falls in love with her in this outstanding musical. She plays a modeling hopeful who goes to the top of her profession after becoming a successful musical star, and ends up engaged to a stuffy heir (Lee Bowman) to a fortune. In denial that she's really in love with hoofer Gene Kelly, Hayworth prepares for a life of boredom while deep down inside, she's anxious to dance again down the street with him and his low-class friend (an amusing Phil Silvers) and "Make Way for Tomorrow".
With Jerome Kern's former lyric writing partner Oscar Hammerstein II now busy with Richard Rodgers and Ira Gershwin's music writing brother George deceased, the two joined forces to write an original music score that has been called one of the best original song scores written for the screen. Hayworth, as usual, is dubbed, and performs an ancient musical hall song (complete with a dress covered in huge polka dots) bemoaning the fate of a heroine whose potential mother-in-law openly disapproves of her, and dances joyously with Kelly and Silvers to the optimistic "Make Way For Tomorrow", then flings herself down a curvy run-way to the magnificent "Long Ago and Far Away". Kelly gets some neat special effects, dancing with a transparent version of himself, in "Alter Ego Dance".
Another highlight is the fashion show "Cover Girl" number which resembles "Easter Parade's" "The Girl I Love is on a Magazine Cover" and "Beautiful Girls" from "Singin' in the Rain" featuring live girls either on calendars or magazine covers. In fantastic support are Eve Arden as the sardonic magazine executive secretary who becomes Rita's confidante, Leslie Brooks as Rita's chorus girl chum, and Otto Kruger as a father figure in Rita's life. In short, this is a movie about Rita, aka Rusty, aka Maribelle. There's also a delightful cameo by Jack Norton, the tea-totaler actor who plays a drunk delightfully joining in Gene, Phil and Rita's big number together.
This is a musical and visual delight from start to finish, probably Columbia's most popular film of the 1940's along with "The Jolson Story" and one of the factors that moved the studio from the "B's" to the "A's".