OVP: Affair in Trinidad (1952)

Film: Affair in Trinidad (1952)
Stars: Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford, Alexender Scourby, Valerie Bettis
Director: Vincent Sherman
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Costume Design)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2020 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress known as an iconic "film sex symbol."  This month, our focus is on Rita Hayworth-click here to learn more about Ms. Hayworth (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Some performers it feels like a month of Saturdays is long enough to give you a proper depiction of their career, but Rita Hayworth's time in Hollywood, two decades long, is not one of them.  With only four Saturdays, we can just scratch the surface of her career, and as we've profiled some of her most legendary films on the blog before (read here for Gilda and The Lady from Shanghai, both masterpieces that are basically required viewing for anyone who loves the movies), we're going to move ahead from the most celebrated era of her career to the 1950's, specifically 1952.  At this point Hayworth had endured two very public (unsuccessful) marriages to filmmaker Orson Welles and playboy Prince Aly Khan, and been one of Columbia's biggest stars, though in 1952 she'd been away from the movies for four years, last being seen in 1948's The Loves of Carmen (similar to Grace Kelly a few years later, it was deemed inappropriate for a literal princess, and not just a Hollywood one, to continue acting).  Divorced, and in need of a comeback, Hayworth reluctantly returned to Columbia to make a film with her Gilda costar Glenn Ford.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film in a lot of ways mimics Gilda, and not just with the stars.  We are once again in a tropical paradise overrun with crime (we've moved north of Argentina to the titular Trinidad), and we have a man shot, initially we assume as a suicide but then we later realize it's murder.  His wife is an infamous nightclub singer named Chris Emery (Hayworth) who does sultry dances, and seems confused by her husband's death.  She is comforted by her husband's friend Max (Scourby), who is clearly desperately infatuated with her.  Things become complicated in his seduction when the late man's brother Steve (Ford) comes to see his sibling, and then tries to solve who killed him.  Naturally, Steve & Chris fall in love, but Max doesn't want to allow that, and as the film unfolds, we find out that Max is a very bad man, selling weapons that could be used against the United States.  The finale has a showdown between Chris, who discovers Max's plans, as well as Steve, who shoots Max and ends up with Chris in his arms, headed back to a more "suitable" location for the sure-to-be-newlyweds, in this case Chicago.

Affair in Trinidad borrows so often from Gilda one would assume it's a remake.  The plots are similar, the stars are exact, and we even see a famous dance number by Hayworth.  Dressed in fabulous, decadent Jean Louis gowns (there's a black sequined number toward the end of the picture that will make your jaw drop, and more than earns the film's one Oscar nomination), Hayworth is every inch the glamour girl we remembered before her wedding, and she brings heat to this role in a way that pretty much saves the picture from the rather dour Scourby & Ford (Valerie Bettis is also fun in a side role as a bitchy drunk, constantly throwing shade at everyone in the way only a beautiful blonde woman can).

The problem is that this is kind of a tired formula by 1952, and since we've seen Gilda, it's not like this is better in any way.  Even the best parts (Hayworth, Bettis, the dance numbers) were all done well before, and as a result this leaves a fine film but one that feels formulaic.  Compared to other, crueler film noir of the era such as The Big Heat or In a Lonely Place, where Gloria Grahame was allowed to be sexy and properly dangerous, Hayworth's Chris is well-performed but never intriguing in the way that some of her previous femme fatales were.  This, however, wasn't the decision of audiences of the time, who welcomed Hayworth back with open arms, and actually made this movie a bigger picture than Gilda, ensuring that even without a prince on her arm, she was still a bankable celebrity & starlet.  Next week we will visit Hayworth at the end of the 1950's, when her seismic career finally started to wane after decades in the spotlight.