The film is known for cinematographer Rudolph Maté's lush photography, costume designer Jean Louis's wardrobe for Hayworth (particularly for the dance numbers), and choreographer Jack Cole's staging of "Put the Blame on Mame" and "Amado Mio", sung by Anita Ellis.

[5][6][7] Johnny Farrell, an American newly arrived in Buenos Aires, Argentina, wins money from sailors at the city's docks by playing craps with weighted dice.

Mundson returns from a trip to the United States and announces he has an extremely beautiful new wife, Gilda, whom he has married after only knowing her for a day.

Suspicious of the Germans, the Argentine police assign agent Obregón to try to obtain information from Farrell, but he knows nothing about this aspect of Mundson's operations.

After hearing the front door slam, they realize that Mundson has overheard them, and a guilt-ridden Farrell pursues him to a waiting private airplane.

Cast notes Gilda was developed by producer Virginia Van Upp as a vehicle for Hayworth, who had mostly been known for her roles in musical comedies at that time.

[11] However, the location of the story was changed to Buenos Aires after objections from censor Joseph Breen and the replacement of Goulding with Charles Vidor.

[20] More recently, film critic Emanuel Levy wrote a positive review: "Featuring Rita Hayworth in her best-known performance, Gilda, released just after the end of WWII, draws much of its peculiar power from its mixture of genres and the way its characters interact with each other ... Gilda was a cross between a hardcore noir adventure of the 1940s and the cycle of 'women's pictures.'

(...) Hayworth plays Gilda with a layer of bravado that masks deep insecurity"; however, he felt that the film's unusually happy ending for a noir compromised it.

[22] Attesting to its immediate success, it was widely reported that an atomic bomb to be tested at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands would bear the film's title above an image of Hayworth, a reference to her bombshell status.

The bomb was decorated with a photograph of Hayworth cut from the June 1946 issue of Esquire magazine; above it was stenciled the device's nickname, "Gilda", in two-inch black letters.

[24] According to Orson Welles, her husband at the time of filming Gilda, Hayworth believed it to be a publicity stunt from Columbia executive Harry Cohn and was furious.

Welles told biographer Barbara Leaming: "Rita used to fly into terrible rages all the time, but the angriest was when she found out that they'd put her on the atom bomb.

Welles tried to persuade Hayworth that the whole business was not a publicity stunt on Cohn's part, that it was simply homage to her from the flight crew.

The film has also been watched by characters in Hero, Girl, Interrupted, and The Thirteenth Floor, as well as episodes of Joan of Arcadia, The Blacklist, and The Penguin.