Blood and Sand (1941) Reviews

• Disappointing Hollywood Classic.

  jpdoherty2010-01-19

  20th Century Fox's 1941 production BLOOD & SAND is a remake of the 1922 silent classic that established Rudolph Valentino as the greatest star of early cinema. Beautifully photographed in vivid 3 strip Technicolor by Ernest Palmer and Ray Renahan the elaborate newer version had the obvious heir-apparent to the silent screen star in dashing Tyrone Power. Written for the screen by Jo Swerling from the novel by Vicente Blasco Ibanez it was directed with a certain amount of flair, it has to be said, by Rouben Mamoulian who just the previous year had had his greatest success with Tyrone Power when he directed him in the classic "Mark Of Zorro" BLOOD & SAND recounts the story of a young, ambitious and quite naive bullfighter Juan Gallardo (Power) who falls under the spell of a beauteous and attractive socialite (Rita Hayworth) wrecking his relationship with Carmen (Linda Darnell) the girl who has always loved him since childhood. The picture culminates with Juan discovering too late that he is only a toy for the manipulative socialite. And finally in the end when he is gored by a bull in the ring it is the forgiving Carmen, his only true love, that comes to his side to comfort him as he lays dying. BLOOD & SAND was a very popular picture of the War years and remains a great favourite with Power devotees. However I have to confess to never being very fond of it. There is little doubt Ty Power is good as the aspiring Matador and Hayworth chews up every bit of scenery in sight as the alluring Donna Sol. But with the exception of Anthony Quinn and that memorable dance sequence he does with Hayworth I found the rest of the cast - particularly the young actor Rex Downing who played Juan as a boy - unconvincing and altogether uninspiring. In fact the whole picture for me was curiously uninvolving! Also Juan being gored by the bull towards the end is very badly done! You don't really see what happens to him. Was he gored in the back or the front? It is very difficult to decipher. And he appears very clean and unmarked in his ensuing death scene. Nevertheless the great Alfred Newman saves the day with his terrific score. Besides his music capturing all the heat, dust and passion of the bullring the composer also incorporates into his score the sumptuous traditional Spanish guitar melody "Romance D'Amour". An engaging and totally ravishing piece that was used to greater effect in "Forbidden Games" in 1952 when it was played by guitar genius Narciso Yepes. BLOOD & SAND can at least be enjoyed for its awesome colour Cinematography, Newman's great music, the star power and presence of Tyrone Power and the flowing beauty of Rita Hayworth.

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• Colorful film finally out on DVD

  blanche-22007-05-05

  Directed by Rouben Mamoulian, 1941's "Blood and Sand" is based on the Ibanez novel and a remake of the 1922 film starring Rudolph Valentino. Darryl F. Zanuck remade "The Mark of Zorro" and "Blood and Sand" for his top star, Tyrone Power. Despite a comment here that this film established Power as a star, he had been a star since 1936 and a superstar since 1939. But with the success of Zorro and this film, Power's fate as a swashbuckling hero was sealed. He wouldn't break out of the box until the mid-'50s. "Blood and Sand" tells the story of Juan Gallardo, son of a famous bullfighter killed in the ring, who aspires against his mother's wishes to be a bullfighter himself. He becomes a star of the ring, marries his sweetheart, is seduced by a temptress, falls into disrepute and turns to drink. Woman has been the downfall of man since Adam and Eve, so the story goes - a constant theme of novelists. The cinematography is incredible. Some of the shots resemble old paintings - Juan's cuadrilla in a line praying in church while Juan is at the altar; the final shot of Nacional's dead body in a bed under a crucifix; the blood symbols: a woman in her excitement over Juan's triumph smearing her lipstick as she runs her hand across her mouth; Dona Sol's red lips and scarlet fingernails; the cool, magnificent beauty of Dona Sol's elaborate home; the pasodoble Dona Sol dances in an incredible rose-colored gown with up and coming matador Manolo; Juan turning from the bull as he drags his cape behind him - all breathtaking, and more than worthy of its Oscar for Best Cinematography. Mamoulian's direction is flawless, telling the story through the actions of the characters. In one scene, Juan falls asleep on Dona Sol's patio; he wakes alone and walks through the house, seeking an exit; he opens a door and it's Dona Sol's bedroom, where she lays sleeping...In the next scene, Juan wears the ring she put on her finger after it was returned by her last suitor (George Reeves). Mamoulian tells us the affair has begun by showing us a ring. Power was established before "Blood and Sand," - Rita Hayworth wasn't, but as the sadistic Dona Sol, gloriously photographed and gorgeous beyond belief, superstardom was hers once this film was released. Watching Tyrone Power as Juan is frustrating because he is so good. Why he never received the credit for his acting that he deserved can only be attributed to his impossible beauty. By the time of this film, he is past his pretty stage and just entering handsomeness. A sweet, humble, perfect gentleman in real life, Tyrone Power's Juan Gallardo lumbers through Dona Sol's house, eats with the manners of a cave man, chews with his mouth open, wears smelly fragrance and is both arrogant and uneducated. When doing a film, the actor had to shave three times a day; here, in order to make him look seedier as time passes, he begins to sport a faint 5 o'clock shadow. There was a comment made that Power hadn't yet had dental work. Power never had cosmetic dental work. Like the model Lauren Hutton, he had a small space between two teeth and, like Lauren Hutton, he had a piece of enamel to place there. For this role, he didn't use it. He didn't care about his looks and in fact, came to resent them. Space between two teeth and slicked down hair or not, his huge eyes, framed by the world's longest eyelashes, practically smolder through the camera. Power's performance is simply fantastic - especially when you consider that attending a real bullfight, he became nauseous. His wife had to say she was sick so they could leave! All of the acting is marvelous, but besides Power, there are several standouts - Alla Nazimova is brilliant as Juan's pessimistic mother, her performance making the role seem even larger; Hayworth's beauty is mind-boggling and she gives Dona Sol not only sexiness and sensuality but coldness. According to Power's stand-in, all the actor did off-camera was stare at Hayworth. Gee, wonder why. Linda Darnell, another underrated actress, is sweet as Juan's loving wife. John Carradine, as the socially-conscious Nacional, is excellent as one of the cuadrilla; and as a turncoat, Laird Cregar gives an appropriately bombastic performance. Ambitious Manolo is played by a young, attractive Anthony Quinn, who is perfect in this film, and his small, showy role portends fabulous things to come from him. The only criticism from me would be that the little boys playing Juan and the cuadrilla in the beginning of the film are too American. Before anyone says anything about the lack of accents, I will repeat the convention - if you're playing a character in a country where English is not spoken, then you're not speaking English -you're speaking the language of the country. Therefore, no accents are used. Spaniards don't walk around Spain all day speaking English with a Spanish accent to other Spaniards. This film is a curiosity - there is an aura of impending death as predicted by the Nazimova character, and in fact, many of the fine actors appearing in the movie came to early and/or tragic ends. Tyrone Power died 17 years later, at the age of 44, of a heart attack while making the film "Solomon and Sheba" and didn't live to see his only son; Linda Darnell would die in a fire when she was 41; Laird Cregar only lived 3 more years, to age 30, succumbing from a heart attack. The saddest is Rita Hayworth, a true goddess. After abuse and great unhappiness, she developed Alzheimer's in the early 1960s and died in 1987. But what wonderful legacies they left us. "Blood and Sand" is a jewel in the Twentieth Century Fox crown, a great achievement in acting, directing, and cinematography.

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• Into Valentino's Shoes

  bkoganbing2004-08-17

  When 20th Century Fox decided to re-make Rudolph Valentino's great silent screen triumph Blood and Sand it probably was Tyrone Power's biggest test as an actor and a box office draw up to that time. Valentino's performance was still fresh in everyone's mind. Well, Tyrone Power passed the test with flying colors that showed up in Ray Rennahan's fabulous cinematography here. One of the previous reviewers who was from Brazil expressed a lot of what I would have said. Tyrone Power with three roles, here, in The Mark of Zorro and in Captain From Castile became a Latino cultural hero for those portrayals. Hard to believe since the Power family theatrical tradition goes back a couple of centuries in Ireland. But those portrayals have stood the test of time and to get such an accolade from a Latino viewer is the highest possible praise for his acting. Tyrone Power as Juan Gallardo whose mission in life is to become an even greater Matador than his father who was killed in the bullring, brings a combination of panache and bumptiousness to the part. He's bold and daring, but not terribly sophisticated and never learned to read and write. And he's got two women all in an uproar over him, Linda Darnell who is his wife and the temptress Dona Sol. This loan out for Rita Hayworth playing Dona Sol is what really launched her career as sex symbol. Dona Sol was Hayworth's trial run as vamp and temptress, the forerunner of Gilda which was her signature part. The cast is well populated with some of the best character actors Hollywood had to offer. Anthony Quinn, Nazimova, J. Carrol Naish, Monty Banks, John Carradine, etc., all are perfectly cast. One I think should be singled out is Laird Cregar. Cregar plays Curro the bullfighter critic and I think Cregar enjoyed playing this part, allowing an actor to exact some revenge on critics as a breed. Bullfighting isn't just some guy going into a ring to kill a bull. It's all in the showmanship and Curro is a critic like a theater critic, not a sportswriter. You really love to hate Curro as the film progresses and I wonder just what made him such an expert? Cregar was fleshing out that old expression about critics being eunuchs, they know how to do it, but can't do it themselves. I think Cregar was paying back every critic whoever gave him a bad review with this one. Blood and Sand was certainly a jinxed picture. Tyrone Power died so young of that heart attack while shooting Solomon and Sheba in Spain, Linda Darnell died a few years later in a house fire trying to rescue someone she thought trapped in the flames, George "Superman" Reeves who played one of Rita Hayworth's admirers committed suicide, Rita Hayworth had that tragically lingering Alzheimer's Disease and Laird Cregar was the first to go of a heart attack in his twenties. Another great work of art attached to so much tragedy. As far as I'm concerned Rudolph Valentino starred in the silent version of Tyrone Power's, Blood and Sand.

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• Quinn and Hayworth's Pasadoble remains one of the movie's best remembered moments..

  Nazi_Fighter_David2001-11-10

  'The Mark of Zorro' and 'Blood and Sand' confirmed Rouben Mamoulian's enduring concern with drama conveyed through movement of characters and camera... The former was a rousing, deliciously ironic swashbuckler; the latter an adaptation of Ibañez's story about a simple country boy whose success as a matador leads him into temptation and towards a violent early death... Rudolph Valentino had scored one of his biggest success with 'Blood and Sand' in 1922, and the same story served as a Tyrone Power vehicle nineteen years later... Color, and Mamoulian's almost choreographic direction, turned the motion picture into an exquisite melodrama, where all the passes and swirls of the bullring were vividly depicted: The parade of the bullfighters and their entourage, the race of the vicious predator into the arena, the matadors flashing their yellow and pink capes... Rita Hayworth blood-red lips and scarlet fingernails, contrast the cool colors of her Spanish mansion, and show her off to glittering advantage... In her sensuous screen Pasadoble with Anthony Quinn, she looks sensational in her rose evening gown, symbolic of the Spanish bullfight flavor... The arrogant and passionate dance, based on Flamenco dancing that characterizes the man as the matador and the lady as his red cape, is performed with style and surety... The colors, rose and green, are blended to perfection with the amazing prowess of an appealing couple in tune with the balanced perfection of shapes and the sweeping movements of Rita Hayworth... Quinn is perfect for redoing old Valentino roles... He always demonstrated his grace and remarkable agility on the dance floor... This sequence remains one of the movie's best remembered moments... Mamoulian begins the film with a 30 minute prologue, establishing the characters ten years before the main narrative... Juanillo, just a little boy with fire, vigorously illiterate but possessing his father's passion for bullfighting, is seen by night currently taking the bullfighting world by storm... Not least for his exceptional brave and agile style of fighting but also for his age... Juanillo adores the art of bullfighting... Hr runs off to Madrid with his boyhood friends, Manolo, Nacional Pablo and La Pulga... After winning a certain reputation as a 'flat-footed novillero,' Juan (Tyrone Power) returns years later to Seville to marry his childhood sweetheart, Carmen Espinosa (Linda Darnell - a voluptuous beauty with perfect complexion), and brings her to live in his luxurious home where he has installed his mother (Alla Nazimona) and his sister, Encarnacion (Lynn Bari). Then he goes on to become the 'first matador in Spain' showing his individual personality by the combination and variations of his passes... Juan brings the bull past his body with the elegance of a premier ballet dancer, making it seem effortless and beautiful... As his popularity climbs Juan's entourage of hangers-on increases joining his boyhood friends Nacional (John Carradine), Manolo de Palma (Anthony Quinn), La Pulga (Michael Morris), Pablo Gomez (Charles Stevens), Sebastian (William Montague), and his loyal dresser, Garabato (J. Carrol Naish) who left the ring just as he came in to it, 'without a peseta.' But all is not so perfect in the ranks of Juan's cuadrilla... Nacional is anxious to leave bullfighting for politics, and Manolo, jealous of Juan's success, wants to make his own name in the ring... And then there is the on-going feud Juan has been engaging in with Natalio Curro (Laird Cregar), the famous bullfight critic who had insulted the memory of his father... When Juan established himself as Spain's most important matador, Curro opportunistically affirms: 'At last Sevilla has a matador. The greatest matador of all history. The first man of the world. The day he was born, there was salt in the air, a great quantity of salt.' And at one of Juan's 'great afternoon', we are introduced to the stunning Doña Sol des Muire (Rita Hayworth) whose chief passion is bullfighting and, in particular, handsome matadors... The torrid Spanish beauty had little difficulty, in luring the new risen star away from his home... Falling under her tempting beauty, Juan begins an affair with her at the expense of both his faithful wife and his career... His skills as a matador go downhill and his bad attitude loses him all his once loyal friends... 'Blood and Sand' is sensitively directed by Mamoulian and might be considered one of the greatest examples of Technicolor film-making... The film won an Oscar for Best Color Cinematography, and was nominated for Best Interior Set Decoration...

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• Death in the Afternoon

  MGMboy2003-12-23

  `Blood and Sand' based on the novel by Ibanez and presented by 20th Century-Fox is a masterpiece of old style Hollywood filmmaking. Director Rouben Mamoulian pulls out all the stops to present this Technicolor flushed romantic story of Juan Gallardo who is portrayed by the impossibly beautiful Tyrone Power. Juan grows from a poor boy dreaming of glory in the bullrings of Spain to the epitome of arrogance and ignorant of the cost to his soul of his fame. The three principals of the story are, Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell as his childhood sweetheart Carmen, and Rita Hayworth as the seductive and hollow Dona Sol. Tyrone Power presents us with a marvelous, energetic portrait of a young, brash and over confident Juan. His first close-up bursts the edges of the screen and burns in the colors of Goya. Tyrone Power was made for the movies and cinematographers Ernest Palmer and Ray Rennahan film him with as much care as they do the two female leads. Thus this overpoweringly beautiful close-up sucks the viewer into the world of Juan and one is swept away by his charm and bravado. Mr. Powers's performance is almost overshadowed at first by his physical presence but as the story progresses his talent as a film actor takes over and sustains the viewer to the end. Linda Darnell, a great beauty of the movies and by her own admission, not much of an actress, turns in a very good performance as Juan's discarded wife Carmen. I do not agree with Miss Darnell's opinion of her talents. One only has to look at `Letter to Three Wives' to see what an accomplished screen actress she was. And here too she takes the thankless roll of Carmen and makes one care about the poor girl. Then we have Rita Hayworth who here in `Blood and Sand' sets the standard for the great-lost beauties of the silver screen. Her Dona Sol is everything we hope for in the empty shell of a femme fatal. It is said of her, at one point in the film by a newspaper critic of bullfighting, as he points to the ring: `Gentleman, if this is death in the afternoon, then she is death in the evening.' And Miss Hayworth lives up to every inch of his description in this her breakout performance. In the garden scene where she performs the `Toro!' seduction and sings to her victim Juan, she is utterly captivating and irresistible in her Travis Banton gown and cascading titian hair. Here we see the birth of Rita Hayworth and the demise of Rita Cansino. Also worth mentioning are Anthony Quinn as one of Juan's boyhood friends, Manola De Palma and the wonderful silent star Alla Nazemova who is heart breaking as Juan's mother. The music by the masterful Alfred Newman sets the tone and emotion of the film. Lush and full of the sounds of Spain it is one of his best. Darryl Zanuck believed that story was everything in film. Without a good story you had nothing to build a film on. In `Blood and Sand' the head of Fox proves his point and gives us a great movie presented in the grand style of Hollywood's golden age.

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