Working for a studio that churned out mostly cheap product, Hayworth’s films got “A” budgets and loving attention from production chief Harry Cohn, who knew what the public wanted. And Harry gave it to them.
What they craved, of course, was sex.
No problem. Voluptuous and teasing, blessed with a knockout figure and thick, red tresses, Rita Hayworth was a wartime pinup and 20-year megastar through the 1950s. But eventually, Hayworth brought more to her roles than just a sexy persona onto which men could graft their fantasies. She became a creditable actress, displaying a range few expected from the former nightclub dancer born Margarita Carmen Cansino in Brooklyn in 1918.
Rita Hayworth in Living Technicolor
A new five-disc DVD box set from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment includes five of Hayworth's best-known Columbia titles. Three, Tonight and Every Night, Salome and Miss Sadie Thompson, are new to DVD. Sadly, though, the set omits the brilliant The Lady From Shanghai.
The films here are beautifully restored and remastered by director Martin Scorsese’s non-profit Film Foundation, for 20 years truly doing the movie gods’ work here on earth.
In fact, the three-strip Technicolor of the first two films now is so luscious, you could scrape it off the screen and spread it on cake. Speaking of those first two films…
Cover Girl (1944)
This witty confection is among Hayworth’s best-known musicals and co-stars Gene Kelly, Phil Silvers, Eve Arden and Columbia’s own leading man Lee Bowman. Kelly plays a hard-driving stage director in love with chorus girl Hayworth. The thin story is made slimmer by the colorless Bowman as Kelly’s rival for Hayworth’s affections. He enters the scene when Hayworth snags a magazine cover and a modeling career opens up.
The dance numbers are pretty good, especially the ones with Silvers, who did little cabaret stuff later on as TV’s scheming Sgt. Bilko. And as ever, Arden is the wisecracking Girl Friday.
The film also features Columbia's trifecta of toupees. Kelly, Silvers and Bowman all sport competing hairpieces and it’s a challenge to decide which looks the fakest.
Tonight and Every Night (1945)
This could have been called Rita Goes to War. In London during the Blitz, she’s an American showgirl pursued by the still-uninspiring Lee Bowman as a British flier with virtually no hint of an English accent. Even Bowman's paste-on hair is a more convincing subterfuge than his voice.
The tone is darker here, since the film is based on the true story of a London theatre which never missed a performance, despite the devastating German air raids. As actress Patricia Clarkson puts it in a four-minute on-camera introduction, “…although (Tonight and Every Night) was a musical, it reflected the terror and the sadness of war. A real war which was still being fought throughout the world.”
You gotta love the double entendre title. But the real fun comes in Rita’s amazing wardrobe from costumer Jean Louis; strong and sometimes risqué production numbers; and impressive supporting performances from movie veteran Florence Bates as the theatre’s world-weary proprietor and stage dancer Marc Platt in his movie debut.
As with Cover Girl, Tonight and Every Night was shot by Rudolph Mate, among the greatest cinematographers in Hollywood’s golden era. (He soon would turn to directing, with credits including the classic "B" noir, D.O.A.) British-born Victor Saville directed and produced.
Gilda (1946)
This noir pretty much cemented Rita Hayworth’s status as a movie icon. Unlike the Technicolor musicals, this magnificently black-and-white drama allowed Hayworth to be sexy, commanding and vulnerable. In short, Gilda finally gave the sex symbol a chance to prove she could act.
Co-stars include the ever-stolid (yawn) Glenn Ford and the deliciously malevolent George Macready. The latter in particular deserves rediscovery; few film actors working in the 1940s could portray menace with more precision and style than this severe-looking stage veteran with the silky diction and creepy facial scar.
The movie’s intriguing love triangle can’t sustain a second act lag, when the story bogs down over Argentina casino owner Macready’s lust for power, some yucky Germans and a staged plane crash.
Gilda, of course, is famous for Rita's one-glove striptease to Put the Blame on Mame. Rarely has a woman taken off less clothing with more allure.
Miss Sadie Thompson (1953)
On a South Seas island, good time girl/prostitute/nightclub singer Sadie is pursued by a Marine stationed there (manly-man Aldo Ray) while a prudish moralist (Jose Ferrer) tries to reform her.
This was the fourth big screen take on the hoary W. Somerset Maugham story, pun intended.
Rita’s legendary figure was beginning to lose its buoyancy; by 1953, she'd given birth to daughters by successive husbands Orson Welles and Aly Khan. But her performance is better than the updated-but-still-creaky story, with its trumped-up climax and forced happy ending.
And Rita’s emotional range is impressive – from party-girl good cheer to deadpan to fury and back again.
Since this is a Rita Hayworth picture, there’s a production number, The Heat is On, which is, well, pretty hot. (Don’t confuse it with the Don Henley tune of the same name.)
The picture was originally released in 3D, presumably so millions of men would stampede theaters to see Rita bursting out all over. Watch for Charles Bronson, still using his real name, Buchinsky, in a small role as another Marine.
Incidentally, Ferrer extends the tradition of casting toupee-toppin’ men opposite Hayworth. Coincidence? I wonder.
Salome (1953)
This one is Hayworth’s contribution to the movies' widescreen religious epics craze of the early ‘50s. Her co-stars, including Charles Laughton, Sir Cedric Hardwicke and Judith Anderson, must’ve rolled their eyes over the stilted dialogue, which they deliver with stentorian silliness. Fifties hunk Stewart Granger is also along for the ride.
Which makes you wonder: Where’s Victor Mature when you need him?
The best you can say is Salome'srestoration work is masterful but seems wasted on such weak, inane material.
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The Films of Rita Hayworth includes some nice extras, including director Baz Luhrmann’s (Moulin Rouge!, Australia, Strictly Ballroom) reflections on Cover Girl; Luhrmann and Martin Scorsese’s observations on Gilda; Richard Schickel’s running commentary on Gilda; and actress Patricia Clarkson’s introductory remarks on Tonight and Every Night and Miss Sadie Thompson.
The package also includes original trailers.
Hayworth’s struggle with Alzheimer’s Disease is well documented and the DVD package includes a donation envelope from the Alzheimer’s Association.
The Films of Rita Hayworth carries a suggested list price of $59.95 and is available Dec. 21, 2010, late but not impossibly so for Christmas morning.
Barry M. Grey - Barry M. Grey is a non-fiction TV writer-producer in Los Angeles whose love of classic film borders on the dangerously obsessive.
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