The Loves of Carmen ** (1948, Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford, Victor Jory, Ron Randell, Luther Adler, Arnold Moss, Margaret Wycherly) – Classic Movie Review 10,933

The 1948 Technicolor romantic drama film The Loves of Carmen re-teams Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford. Hayworth is ideal as the wild gypsy sexy señorita Carmen Garcia, giving a fiery performance in a disappointingly passionless retelling of the steamy tale.

Producer-director Charles Vidor’s 1948 Technicolor romantic drama film The Loves of Carmen re-teams Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford, the stars of the 1946 film noir masterwork Gilda, along with its director, two years later. Yet the Gilda magic proves, perhaps inevitably, elusive.

Rita Hayworth is ideal as the wild gypsy sexy Spanish señorita Carmen Garcia, giving a fiery performance, in producer-director Charles Vidor’s disappointingly passionless retelling of the steamy tale. But Glenn Ford is miscast as the innocent young dragoon corporal, Don José Lizarabengoa, smitten by her charms and turned by her to a life of banditry and crime.

Hayworth was born Margarita Carmen Cansino, and here her father Eduardo Cansino assisted choreographer Robert Sidney in his daughter’s daring dances. This lavish Technicolor 20th filming of the yarn looks impressive as shot by William E Snyder and designed by Stephen Goosson and Cary Odell, but the screenplay is poor and it sorely misses Georges Bizet’s familiar, fiery tunes.

Unfortunately, director Vidor just can’t recreate the magic of the Hayworth-Ford chemistry in his Gilda film here. And nor could Vincent Sherman in his 1952 black and white crime thriller film Affair in Trinidad.

Helen Deutsch’s screenplay is based on the novel Carmen by Prosper Mérimée.

Vidor also directed Hayworth in The Lady In Question (1940) and Cover Girl (1944).

Also in the cast are Victor Jory, Ron Randell, Luther Adler, Arnold Moss, Margaret Wycherly, Bernard Nedell, Joseph Buloff, John Baragrey, Philip Van Zandt, Tony Dante, Veronica Pataky, Rosa Turich, Leona Roberts, Wally Cassell, Trevor Bardette, José Cansino, Vernon Cansino and Al Cansino.

Ford and Hayworth appeared together in five films: The Lady In Question (1940), Gilda (1946), The Loves of Carmen (1948), Affair in Trinidad (1952) and The Money Trap (1965).

Hayworth’s father, Eduardo Cansino Reina, was a dancer who emigrated from Spain in 1913.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 10,933

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