Les Amours de Carmen

Rita Hayworth reached back to her portrayal of Dona Sol in Blood and Sand and even further back to her Spanish heritage for a riveting performance as Carmen, the fiery and seductive gypsy created by Prosper Merimee and immortalized by Bizet in his opera.

The Loves of Carmen is Rita's co-production with Columbia Pictures and this would be her last film for several years as right after this film came out, she married Aly Khan. She became a Princess and lived one wild jet setting life. She was queen of the tabloids back then.

Carmen as done by Hayworth is beautiful, fascinating, and frightening. Scary in the way she just uses, abuses, and discards the male of the species. It's the perfect Rita Hayworth role for those demanding to see in my opinion the greatest sex goddess the cinema ever produced.

The reason that The Loves of Carmen is not a classic is the horrible miscasting of Glenn Ford as Don Jose. Try as he might Glenn Ford comes off about as Latin as Curt Jurgens. Ford had the same problem when he was cast in Rudolph Valentino's role in the remake of The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse. Tyrone Power worked well opposite Rita in Blood and Sand, but he was at the wrong studio. And it would have to have been the pre World War II Power. Someone like Farley Granger who could have suggested a callow youth might have been better.

Rita cast Ford in the part, partly for reasons of friendship, partly because it cost nothing extra because Glenn was under contract to Columbia as she was, and partly due to the big box office they became because of Gilda two years earlier. When Rita did return to the screen after her marriage to Aly Khan was over, Ford appeared opposite her in Affair in Trinidad which was far better suited to his image.

I won't go into the plot because the Bizet Opera and the musical Carmen Jones has made it all so familiar. Let's just say that between Hayworth's amorality and Ford's hormones it ends in tragedy for both.

The rest of the cast does just fine. Note the good performances of Arnold Moss as Ford's commanding officer, Victor Jory as the gypsy bandit leader, Margaret Wycherly as the old gypsy woman who foretells the future for all. Most of all Luther Adler who is a cynical observer of all around him from Jory's band of thieves.

But as in another Columbia classic, The Loves of Carmen could have been a contender.

There are times when RITA HAYWORTH, with her flashing eyes, heady mane of tresses and way with castanets and Spanish dances, amply fills the role of Carmen in THE LOVES OF CARMEN. She captures the flirtatious moods and stormy temperament without any trouble at all, and yet somehow every ravishing close-up reminds us that she has just been all glammed up by the make-up artist, every brush on her lips and hair and brows just given the royal Hollywood glamor treatment. Her glamor is so distracting that it renders her Carmen unrealistic, even though she certainly has the temperament to go with the part.

GLENN FORD is somber, stalwart and rugged enough as Don Jose but it doesn't seem like ideal casting. He looks uncomfortable in much of the early footage and only comes to life when he has killed a man and must spend the rest of the film on flight as a bandit and desperado in the rugged mountains. His performance strengthens and his love/hate relationship with Carmen is, for the most part, quite believable.

But some pseudo-Spanish music in the background score with a hint of Bizet would have been a wise approach to scoring the film. And giving Rita more than a couple of fiery dances would have been a smarter idea. As it is, her dancing moments are when she most completely captures the spirit of Carmen.

It's entertaining, in a lumbering sort of way--not exactly the most well paced version of the story. Hayworth is gorgeous to look at with a peaches and cream complexion that fairly glows in Technicolor, but all of her close-ups remind us that she is The Love Goddess being given the high gloss glamor treatment by the studio that made her a star.

But, reservations aside, for fans of Hayworth and Ford, this is a must see.

The Loves of Carmen (1948) may not be my favorite take on this classic story nor is it among the cinematic greats, but it is nevertheless a fun romantic melodrama with tons of personality. The color photography is beautiful. The atmosphere is perfect. Glenn Ford is great as the obsessed Don Jose, a man torn between his integrity and his passions. The character could have easily been played stiff, but Ford gives him tragic dignity (plus he looks great in those tight pants).

But it seems everyone, love or hate this movie, agrees that Rita Hayworth as Carmen is the best asset on display. She is charismatic and sexy, sympathetic and infuriating. She brings the movie to a higher level and contributes much to its success.

Fresh on the heels of the mega hit Gilda and Rita going blonde in Then Lady from Shanghai producer Roy Cohn got his director (Charles Vidor) and stars (Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford) back in the studio with this high brow opera story minus the music from Carmen. Denied of its lifeblood it is a colorfully dull re-working of the hit with Rita as alluring as ever and Glenn, hair dyed and curled looking uncomfortable and foolish as a Spanish soldier.

Vidor's drab direction fails to create much spark as his leads fail to re-capture the chemistry of Gilda. Victor Jory as the sadistic bandit Garcia and Margaret Wycherly as Old Crone are notable but minus the music it remains a colorful balloon with no air in it.

Ah, too bad they don't make like these anymore! Beautiful, much-missed (by me!) old Technicolor helps to create both romantic, pristine 19th century Spain which never was and romantic, enchanting beauty of Carmen. She is gorgeous, entertaining and artificial with red hair (shouldn't it be dark?), red flowers and black mantilla. There is also sometimes delicious 1940's dialogue (by Helen Deutsch who also wrote great 1955 Cinderella movie Glass slipper). Carmen is a gypsy version of Scarlett O'Hara, rotten apple with no compassion to anyone - and she really likes to spit! - although it is easy to sympathize her desire not to give her heart to any of the supposedly innocent but actually brain-between-legs admirers around her. They offer shallow, "pure" love while being sex-obsessed, abusive boors: general hits his servant, Carmen's charms make every man to follow her like dog in heat, Carmen tells that wife-beating is rampant in village... Don't get me me wrong, Carmen needed good tongue-lashing, but good and evil are really blurring in this extremely well-made (thanks to virtues of old studio system!) melodrama.