When you watch this film, you might think that Rita Hayworth is all wrong to be playing Carmen. After all, she hardly looks like a Gypsy*....with her red hair and fair skin. However, had she made the film before the studio head, Ray Cohn, had her made over in the early 1940s, she would have looked perfect...with her dark hair and Hispanic looks. It seems that Rita Cansino (her real name) played up her half Spanish heritage as a dancer...only to be later made a lot less exotic by Columbia Pictures. Glenn Ford, on the other hand, is totally wrong in the film...he doesn't look nor act Spanish and the part is not exactly a rugged and manly one.
The story is a non-musical version of the story of Carmen...which was made into a world famous opera by the Frenchman, Bizet. Before this, "Carmen" was a story by Prosper Mérimée...and the film is a bit more like the original story.
Carmen is a Gypsy*...and she embodies every negative stereotype heaped upon the Romani people. She's a thief and with a heart of stone...who destroys men just because she's bored. Her latest 'project' is Don Jose (Ford), a respected Corporal in the army. She manages to ruin him, orchestrates him killing his commanding officer and leads him into the life of a highway man. Not surprisingly, she soon bores of him...and the whiny Don Jose can't handle this..even though it's OBVIOUS to EVERYONE that Carmen is no good nor ever will be. What's next? See the film...or, better yet...see the lovely opera...it's just better.
So why do I say the opera is better? Well, operas are supposed to have broad characters and are very obvious....that's just the nature of operas. Plus, the music is there to make up for shortcomings of the characters. But here, without the opera music, you are just left with some broadly written characters that seem difficult to believe or care about in any way. Curiously uninvolving and one of Glenn Ford's worst films, as it gives him little to do but whine and act like a love-sick puppy.
* The film is filled with terrible stereotypes about the Romani people. Even the word 'Gypsy' is considered perjorative and I used it simply because that is how Carmen and her people are referred to in the story. I am pretty sure today, many would be offended by this broad stereotype.
The story is a non-musical version of the story of Carmen...which was made into a world famous opera by the Frenchman, Bizet. Before this, "Carmen" was a story by Prosper Mérimée...and the film is a bit more like the original story.
Carmen is a Gypsy*...and she embodies every negative stereotype heaped upon the Romani people. She's a thief and with a heart of stone...who destroys men just because she's bored. Her latest 'project' is Don Jose (Ford), a respected Corporal in the army. She manages to ruin him, orchestrates him killing his commanding officer and leads him into the life of a highway man. Not surprisingly, she soon bores of him...and the whiny Don Jose can't handle this..even though it's OBVIOUS to EVERYONE that Carmen is no good nor ever will be. What's next? See the film...or, better yet...see the lovely opera...it's just better.
So why do I say the opera is better? Well, operas are supposed to have broad characters and are very obvious....that's just the nature of operas. Plus, the music is there to make up for shortcomings of the characters. But here, without the opera music, you are just left with some broadly written characters that seem difficult to believe or care about in any way. Curiously uninvolving and one of Glenn Ford's worst films, as it gives him little to do but whine and act like a love-sick puppy.
* The film is filled with terrible stereotypes about the Romani people. Even the word 'Gypsy' is considered perjorative and I used it simply because that is how Carmen and her people are referred to in the story. I am pretty sure today, many would be offended by this broad stereotype.