IncredibleShrinkingCritic

Hate is such a powerful emotion, don't you think? That was one of the running lines in Gilda, thrown back and forth like acid in the face between Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford, who died yesterday at age 90.

The trick in that movie was for Ford's character to maintain what I call (when it pertains to my cats) the Big Tail. When cats know they're confronting a challenge much bigger, stronger, and scarier than they are, they puff up the fur on their tail to look thick and menacing, as if to say -- I've got connections in the Attorney General's office, y'know! (I once caught Buzz making the Big Tail at the dishwasher when it chunked into the rinse cycle unexpectedly.)

Rita Hayworth, as you can imagine from seeing her striptease to Put the Blame on Mame, was the dishwasher to Glenn Ford in Gilda, and Ford gave the Big Tail throughout that strange, perfervid movie, playing a character so at war with himself over loyalty, lust, honor and humiliation you thought he'd explode even before the little bigamy subplot.

I can't say Gilda was Ford's best work, but it was certainly the most fun. An actor who could stand up to Rita Hayworth in her prime, and pretend to hate hate hate her ... ah, but hate is such a powerful emotion, no?