This is considered a film noir.\u00a0 I\u2019d call it a happy ending in search of a plot.<\/p>\n
The movie begins with Glenn Ford as Johnny Farrell, a down on his luck American in Argentina that is rescued from an armed robbery by a mysterious man with a sword cane.\u00a0 This man, Ballin Mundson, ends up hiring him to run his illegal casino and soon enough he is Mundson\u2019s right hand man and has all the secrets of Mundson\u2019s fabulous wealth and power.\u00a0 Apparently Mundson was in cahoots with Nazis who gave him fabulous secrets for cornering the market on fabulous tungsten.\u00a0 Really, tungsten.\u00a0 We\u2019re told that a monopoly on tungsten will give Mundson control of the world!\u00a0 So, since this is 1946 there are disgruntled ex-Nazis running around.\u00a0 Apparently, they gave him the secrets of tungsten.\u00a0 Plus, Mundson marries Gilda (played by the very beautiful Rita Hayworth) who was heavily involved with Farrell back in the United States.\u00a0 But although Mundson suspects that they have history neither will admit to it.<\/p>\n
For whatever reason that you care to come up with yourself we\u2019re supposed to believe that Johnny and Gilda hate and love each other and all the tricks Gilda plays to make Johnny either jealous, or worried about Mundson becoming jealous, or both, make sense.\u00a0 But they don\u2019t.\u00a0 It\u2019s silly and annoying.<\/p>\n
But all good things must come to an end.\u00a0 Both the Argentine police and the Nazis are closing in on Mundson.\u00a0 Probably a spike in the price of tungsten.\u00a0 In rapid succession, Mundson kills one of the Nazis, orders a plane to be ready for him at an airfield, sees Gilda and Johnny kissing in her bedroom then flees to the airfield with Johnny and the police in hot pursuit.\u00a0 They arrive in time to watch Mundson\u2019s plane take off and then explode over the Atlantic Ocean.\u00a0 But Mundson parachutes out and is picked up by a waiting boat.<\/p>\n
If that\u2019s not goofy enough, Johnny then marries Gilda, the heiress to the tungsten cartel and takes the reins of tungsten power.\u00a0 He then tells Gilda that she will be treated as a prisoner with no conjugal privileges until she admits to all the love affairs she\u2019s had since Johnny left her in their old life.\u00a0 Huhh?\u00a0 She runs away to Uruguay (!) but the Tungsten King has his henchmen bring her back.\u00a0 Gilda and Johnny are very unhappy.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile the police want to bust up the tungsten cartel and they close the casino to force Johnny to give them the information.\u00a0 When he does, the police inspector tells Johnny that Gilda and Johnny are both in love with each other and they should go back to America and be happy.\u00a0 So, Johnny walks into the casino to ask Gilda to forgive him and return to America with him.<\/p>\n
Just then Mundson returns and intends to shoot Johnny and Gilda.\u00a0 But the bathroom attendant stabs Mundson in the back with his own sword cane.\u00a0 And the police inspector tells Johnny and the bathroom guy that since Mundson committed suicide months ago he can\u2019t be murdered.\u00a0 Huhh?<\/p>\n
I forgot to tell you about the bathroom attendant.\u00a0 He\u2019s comic relief that advises both Johnny and Gilda on life.\u00a0 Plus, he\u2019s a bathroom attendant.<\/p>\n
So, Gilda and Johnny live happily ever after unless they screw up again.<\/p>\n
Okay, that\u2019s unbelievable isn\u2019t it?\u00a0 But the guy who plays Mundson is fun to listen to with his German accent and his love of canes and capes and stuff.\u00a0 Rita Hayworth is fun to look at and she dances sometimes and lip synchs to someone singing \u201cPut the Blame on Mame.\u201d\u00a0 And even though all this stuff sounds absurd the movie moves right along and, well, before you know it there\u2019s that plane crash and then that happy ending.<\/p>\n
This is a silly movie but I think it\u2019s worth watching because Rita Hayworth is very pretty and looks swell dancing.\u00a0 And there are Nazis and there is that bathroom attendant who is sort of a home-grown philosopher and pretty handy with a sword cane.<\/p>\n
So, I recommend this film but if what I wrote doesn\u2019t convince you then give it a pass.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This is considered a film noir.\u00a0 I\u2019d call it a happy ending in search of a plot. The movie begins with Glenn Ford as Johnny<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[239,238,237],"tags":[3086,2491,43,191,3087,38,1355,3085],"class_list":["post-14658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","category-classic-movie-reviews","category-reviews","tag-gilda","tag-glenn-ford","tag-movie-review","tag-ocf-classic-movie-review","tag-put-the-blame-on-mame","tag-review","tag-reviews","tag-rita-hayworth"],"yoast_head":"\n