Rita – a documentary in which various calebrities speak of the ravishing Rita Hayworth, her impression and career. Kim Bassinger, Tab Hunter, Nicole Kidman, Ann Miller, Orson Welles, Eli Wallach, Juanita Moore, Delbert Mann. 2003 black and white and color.
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A fine and honorable depiction of Rita Hayworth’s long life as a movie Star – from the time as a teenager when, as Rita Cansino, she started in B Westerns and a Charlie Chan movie. It shows less of her work after They Came To Cordura than I would like to have seen; in fact I would like to have seen fuller scenes of her work throughout her working life, especially as an actress, for she had a gift for it, and to act well was her first and main ambition. Fine interviews with those she worked with – all of whom both liked and respected her. And talks by members of a family that was dear to her – her nephews and her children, particularly Princess Yasmin. Rita Hayworth suffered at the end of her life from alcoholism and Alzheimer’s. She was a unique star and one of tremendous cinematic power — quiet and reserved and even prim until the music started and the dance began, then she was a powerhouse of female sexual vivacity. Setting aside Ginger Rogers, she was one of two of Fred Astaire’s greatest dance partners. This piece about her does her justice. Film is radiance captured. Hayworth exuded it like no one else. Behind it resided a sensitive and loving spirit. See especially her screen tests for Story On Page One to reveal her kindness, modesty, and skill. Well worth watching as a record of picture-making during the Thirties and Forties.
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