--- name: "Charles Vidor" canonical: "https://film.one/person/charles-vidor" fi1m_id: "charles-vidor" imdb_id: "nm0896533" tmdb_id: 32134 wikidata_id: "Q149507" roles: ["Additional writing","Director"] born: "26 July 1900" died: "4 June 1959" reviewed_on_fi1m: 2 average_over: 1 updated: "2026-09-25T03:58:05.406066+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Charles Vidor ## Identity Charles Vidor - **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/charles-vidor - **Type:** Person - **Fi1m ID:** charles-vidor - **IMDb ID:** nm0896533 - **TMDB ID:** 32134 - **Wikidata ID:** Q149507 - **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Vidor, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q149507, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0896533/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/32134 Additional writing and director. Born 26 July 1900 in Budapest, Austria-Hungary [now Hungary]. Died 4 June 1959. ## Details - **Work:** Additional writing, Director - **Born:** 26 July 1900, Budapest, Austria-Hungary [now Hungary] - **Died:** 4 June 1959 - **Active:** 1932–1946 - **Also known as:** Károly Vidor, Karoly Vidor - **Titles on Fi1m:** 2: 1 directing, 1 crew - **Fi1m score by decade:** 1930s 61 (1), 1940s 78 (1) - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Vidor, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q149507, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0896533/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/32134 ## Streaming the US now - **The Roku Channel:** [*Gilda*](https://film.one/film/gilda.md) (78) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Charles Vidor > Charles Vidor is worth seeking out for his work with actors, particularly Rita Hayworth. *Gilda* makes desire feel dangerous, even when the plotting strains; his gift for presenting a star is clearer than his control of the story. Rita Hayworth makes the desire in *Gilda* (1946) look difficult to live with. Charles Vidor lets attraction become anxiety and suspicion, while Rudolph Maté’s shadows disturb the film’s polished surfaces. We felt uneasy watching these people want one another, because their longing keeps turning into mistrust. That is Vidor working well: attentive to a performer and to what the lighting can suggest. The film is worth seeing, and Hayworth is the principal reason. His early Columbia assignments gave way to more prominent productions, including *Cover Girl* (1944) and the Chopin biography *A Song to Remember* (1945). This was no narrow specialisation: he worked across comedies, westerns and melodramas as well as musicals. In *Cover Girl*, Hayworth appears alongside Gene Kelly, whose choreography deserves its share of the credit for the dancing. Vidor’s clear, fluid handling of the numbers, with Maté behind the camera, lets us follow the movement without fuss. It is a useful companion to *Gilda*, showing his care with performers in a different kind of film. *Gilda* also shows why we would be cautious about recommending Vidor by name alone. Its plotting is strained, and the direction sometimes grows stiff despite the attraction between the characters. Hayworth holds our interest, but she cannot make every complication convincing. The film works often enough to merit the evening; the reservations concern Vidor’s storytelling, not a reluctance to accept people behaving foolishly through desire. Hayworth made four films with Vidor, including *The Loves of Carmen* (1948), which reunited her with Glenn Ford after *Gilda*. Later, *Love Me or Leave Me* (1955) put Doris Day and James Cagney in his hands for the story of Ruth Etting. These changes of cast and genre make it unhelpful to treat every film as another attempt at *Gilda*. Start with *Gilda*, then try *Cover Girl* if the dancing appeals more than the romantic suspicion. ## Biography Charles Vidor (also credited as Károly Vidor or Karoly Vidor) was a Hungarian-American film director. Born in Budapest, he served in the Austro-Hungarian Army during the First World War. He began working in films in the final years of the silent era and later moved to Hollywood. Vidor directed a number of notable films, including the musical *Cover Girl* (1944), the biopic *A Song to Remember* (1945), the film noir *Gilda* (1946), *Love Me or Leave Me* (1955), *The Joker Is Wild* (1957) and *A Farewell to Arms* (1957). He worked extensively with Columbia Pictures in the 1940s and was married to actress Evelyn Keyes and to Doris Warner, daughter of Warner Bros. president Harry Warner. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, britannica.com.* ## On Fi1m (2) ### Directed (1) - *Gilda* (1946), Fi1m 78, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/gilda.md) ### Crew (1) — the average rests on these - *Me and My Gal* (1932), Fi1m 61, Additional Writing — [page](https://film.one/film/me-and-my-gal.md) ## Complete filmography (37) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Song Without End* (1960), Director - *A Farewell to Arms* (1957), Director - *The Joker is Wild* (1957), Director - *The Swan* (1956), Director - *Love Me or Leave Me* (1955), Director - *Rhapsody* (1954), Director - *Hans Christian Andersen* (1952), Director - *Thunder in the East* (1952), Director - *It's a Big Country* (1951), Director - *The Loves of Carmen* (1948), Director, Producer - *Gilda* (1946), Director — Fi1m 78, [page](https://film.one/film/gilda.md) - *Over 21* (1945), Director - *A Song to Remember* (1945), Director - *Together Again* (1944), Director - *Cover Girl* (1944), Director - *The Desperadoes* (1943), Director - *The Tuttles of Tahiti* (1942), Director - *New York Town* (1941), Director - *Ladies in Retirement* (1941), Director - *The Lady in Question* (1940), Director - *My Son, My Son!* (1940), Director - *Those High Grey Walls* (1939), Director - *Blind Alley* (1939), Director - *Romance of the Redwoods* (1939), Director - *She's No Lady* (1937), Director - *The Great Gambini* (1937), Director - *A Doctor's Diary* (1937), Director - *Muss 'em Up* (1936), Director - *His Family Tree* (1935), Director - *The Arizonian* (1935), Director - *Strangers All* (1935), Director - *Double Door* (1934), Director - *Sensation Hunters* (1933), Director - *Me and My Gal* (1932), as Additional Writing — Fi1m 61, [page](https://film.one/film/me-and-my-gal.md) - *The Mask of Fu Manchu* (1932), Producer - *Good Sport* (1931), Writer - *The Bridge* (1929), Director, Screenplay ## Gallery - ![Charles Vidor](https://film.one/media/person/3853538/gallery-3b29d298d5ae.jpg) Charles Vidor — Columbia Pictures, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/Charles_Vidor_1946.JPG?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Charles Vidor](https://film.one/media/person/3853538/gallery-e1d13c20b7af.jpg) Charles Vidor — Image via TMDB --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/charles-vidor