Rita Hayworth

THE LOVES OF CARMEN

Columbia, 1948.  Directed by Charles Vidor.  Camera:  William Snyder.  With Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford, Ron Randell, Victor Jory, Luther Adler, Arnold Moss, Joseph Buloff, Margaret Wycherly, Bernard Nedell, John Baragrey, Phillip Van Zandt, Anthony Dante, Veronica Pataky, Rosa Turich, Leona Roberts, Helen Freeman, Vernon Cansino, Peter Virgo, Fernando Ramos, Robert Sidney, Roy Fitzell, José Cansino, Joaquin Elizondo, Paul Bradley, Lala De Tolly, Marie Scheue, Barbara Hayden, Wally Cassell, Nenette Vallon, Kate Drain Lawson, Eula Morgan, Inez Palange, Peter Cusanelli, Joseph Malouf, Claire DuBrey, Florence Auer, Alma Beltran, Nina Campana, Lupe Gonzalez, Francis Pierlot, Juan Duval, Paul Marion, Trevor Bardette, George Bell, Rosita Delva, Lucille Charles, Thomas Malinari, Delores Corral, Julio Rojas, Frances Rey, Tessie Murray, Angella Gomez, David Ortega, Roselyn Strangis, Roque Ybarra, Dimas Sotello, Lulu Mae Bohrman, Virginia Vann, Cosmo Sardo, Alfred Paix, Celeste Savoi, Jerry De Castro, Andrew Roud, Al Caruso, Paul Fierro, John J. Verros, Violet Hamley, Bert Gray.

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In the early nineteenth century, Don Jose Mizarabengoa, a gentleman and ambitious young corporal in the Spanish dragoons, arrives for duty in Seville and immediately is enchanted by Carmen, a beautiful, seductive gypsy who steals his watch.  Despite warnings that Carmen is a liar, a thief and a cheat, Jose becomes infatuated with her.

When the fiery Carmen slashes a peasant woman's face for insulting her, Jose is ordered to arrest her, but then allows her to escape.  As punishment, Jose is broken in rank and confined to guard duty.  Jose's commanding officer, the colonel, also succumbs to Carmen's charms, thus arousing Jose's jealousy.

On the night that Carmen tells Jose to meet her at her quarters, a fortuneteller warns her that she will be killed by the man she really loves.  The superstitious Carmen is unnerved by the prediction but, nevertheless, keeps her dalliance with Jose.  When the colonel finds Jose in Carmen's room, he challenges him to a duel, and Carmen trips the officer, sending him plunging to his death on Jose's sword.  Now wanted for murder, Jose flees with Carmen to her gypsy hideout in the mountains and there learns that she is married to Garcia, a ruthless killer.  Fueled by jealousy over Carmen, an intense hatred brews between the two men, finally culminating in a knife fight in which Jose kills Garcia.  Jose then marries Carmen and assumes leadership of the band. Carmen refuses to relinquish her independence, however, and consequently, quarrels constantly with Jose.

One day, Carmen goes to Cordoba for supplies and there meets Lucas, a famous bullfighter, and becomes his lover.  When Jose goes to the city after her, Pablo, one of the band, betrays him to the police for the reward.  Jose finds Carmen outside the bullring but, when he begs her to return to the hills with him, she refuses and spits at him.  Fulfilling the fortune teller's prophecy, Jose stabs her.  At that moment, the police shoot him down, and he dies with Carmen clutched in his arms.

Notes
The film is based on the novella Carmen by Prosper Mérimée in La revue des deux mondes (Paris, October 15, 1845).

The film includes the following written prologue: "In the early 19th century, gypsies of Spain were a bitter and persecuted people who lived outside the law, scorning the standards of civilized society.  Carmen was a product of that lawless and unhappy breed."

Beckworth Pictures Corp., the company that produced this film, was owned by Rita Hayworth.  The Loves of Carmen marked the first screen collaboration between Hayworth and her father, Eduardo Cansino, who worked as the associate choreographer on the film.  According to a Columbia publicity item contained in the film's production files at the AMPAS Library, Cansino, a dance instructor who had coached his daughter since childhood, was a expert on Spanish folk dances.  Hayworth's uncle, José Cansino, performed as a flamenco dancer in the film and her brother Vernon appeared as a soldier.  Robert Sidney, the film's choreographer, was Hayworth's gypsy dancing partner in the flamenco sequence.

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HR news items yield information about the production.  A November 3, 1947 news item announced that Gar Moore, an Oklahoma born Italian stage and film star was being considered for the male lead.  Just before the film went into production, screenwriter Helen Deutsch offered to buy back her original screenplay, according to a November 13, 1947 HR news item. The film was shot on location at Lone Pine, California and around Mt. Whitney, California.  Columbia publicity items add that the set representing the gypsy quarter in Seville was one of the largest built at the studio, covering two sound stages and standing 400 feet long.  According to Columbia publicity, director Charles Vidor used a total of 1,226 bit and extra players for the fiesta dance sequence and asked that a whole new set of extras be called every day to assure that no one would appear in more than one sequence of the film.  Vidor experimented with a new style of Technicolor photography that utilized low-key background lighting and a bright foreground to create a three-dimensional effect, according to a November 12, 1947 HR news item.  Hayworth, Vidor and Glenn Ford had previously worked together on the 1946 Columbia production Gilda.

The Loves of Carmen was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Color Cinematography.

According to a 10 Sep 1948 HR news item, Marcello Girosi, who owned the American releasing rights to the 1946 French film Carmen starring Vivianne Romance, brought a plagiarism suit against Columbia and Beckworth, claiming that there were "twelve direct plagiarisms of action and characterization and bits taken from his picture and used in the Columbia version."  The outcome of that suit is not known.

In addition to Girosi's film, many other pictures have been based on or inspired by the story and opera of Carmen, including two 1913 three-reel versions, one with Marion Leonard, made by the Monopol Film Co., the other with Marguerite Snow, made by the Thanhouser Corp.; two 1915 film versions; a Fox Film production, directed by Raoul Walsh and starring Theda Bara; and a Jesse L. Lasky production, directed by Cecil B. De Mille and starring Geraldine Farrar.  Other films inspired by the story of "Carmen" are the 1927 Fox Film Corp. Loves of Carmen, starring Dolores Del Rio and directed by Raoul Walsh; the 1954 Twentieth Century-Fox production Carmen Jones, directed by Otto Preminger and starring Dorothy Dandridge and Harry Belafonte and a 1983 Spanish film entitled Carmen, directed by Carlos Saura.

Music includes:  "Tanguillo," "Lillas' pastillas" and "Serenata," composers undetermined; and "Amor de gitano," words and music by Fred Karger and Morris Stoloff.

American Film Institute Catalog

Poster artwork courtesy of Dieter