★ 6 / 10
I started out quite enjoying this outing for
CinemaSerf
I started out quite enjoying this outing for Tyrone Power but by an hour in, I was really rather disappointed. Keen to follow in his grandfather's footsteps…
I started out quite enjoying this outing for Tyrone Power but by an hour in, I was really rather disappointed. Keen to follow in his grandfather's footsteps, he is the aspiring toreador "Gallardo" who is panned by critic "Curro" (the scene stealing Laird Creggar) as a fifth rate ring entertainer. He is determined to not only make his fortune, but to become famous and return to his village where he can claim the hand of childhood sweetheart "Carmen" (Linda Darnell). Thing is, success can be a double edged sword and at the top of his game and fame he is espied by the glamorous and rather manipulative "Doña Sol" (Rita Hayworth) who is determined to... well you can guess the rest. That's maybe the problem for me. It begins as a drama that looks at the sometimes rather brutal life of a bullfighter (rightly or wrongly) in a way that reminded me of many films about boxing. This sport really was the only way many people - not just those in the ring, but their friends and families too - could escape the cycle of poverty. It also illustrated quite well just how toxic the power of unfettered adulation can be when the object isn't maybe the strongest emotionally. The second hour does fall away, though, and we flirt just too closely with melodrama as Alfred Newman's score becomes just a bit too prominent (and indicative of what's to come). Anthony Quinn chips in quite well as the bitter "Manolo" but not really enough to keep the action elements on top. You can easily see the drawing power of both Power and Hayworth here, but the story itself let me down.
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★ 7 / 10
Two beautiful people, Tyrone Power and Rita Hayworth, tell us all about ambition, temptation and redemption. It involves bulls
Terrell-4
Blood and Sand is an allegory of a man's pride, lust and ambition, who is redeemed by the love of a good woman and a death ennobled by regret. In other words…
Blood and Sand is an allegory of a man's pride, lust and ambition, who is redeemed by the love of a good woman and a death ennobled by regret. In other words, the movie is a Hollywood weeper. At just over two hours, it's way too long. Still, it shows what can be accomplished when professionals take hold of a teary melodrama and give it color, sleekness, sex and, at 27, an extraordinarily handsome leading man in Tyrone Power. Rita Hayworth, as the femme fatale, is almost as pretty.
Young Juan Gallardo, poor and illiterate, dreams of becoming a famed matador. As a young man (Tyrone Power), he achieves his goal, along with the friendship of men he knew when they were children and the love of his childhood sweetheart, Carmen (Linda Darnell). But fame and money can bring superficial values, and Juan's head is turned with a vengeance. He becomes a great matador, but spends money freely, ignores his old friends in favor of hangers-on and, even worse, he forgets the love of Carmen, now his wife, for the lush and erotic charms of Dona Sol (Rita Hayworth). Although Carmen is lovely, she spends much time looking either compassionate or sad. Dona Sol, or at least Rita Hayworth, is another matter entirely. Hayworth, in a white, form-fitting gown, is something to see as one evening she strolls with perfect posture and a perfect chest toward the poor sap Juan. He doesn't have a chance. In time, his skills become dull and Dona Anna finds him dull and moves on. At last he rediscovers his values and his roots. Wouldn't you know it, just when he restates his love for Carmen, he meets this one particular bull in his last fight. It has two very sharp horns. Music up, lights down, hankies out.
The movie seems to go on and on. We spend almost half an hour on Juan's boyhood before Tyrone Power shows up as a young man. It's nearly an hour before we encounter Rita Hayworth. For Hayworth, the wait is worth it. Her character is selfish, rich, beautiful and all the things a teenaged boy's erotic dreams are made of. This was Hayworth's first color movie and she knocks 'em dead. Says Natalio Curro (Laird Cregar), the effete and envious newspaper bullfight critic, "If this," gesturing at the bullfight arena, "is death in the afternoon, she," gesturing to Dona Sol, "is death in the evening." Towards the end of the movie Hayworth does a dance in a cantina with Anthony Quinn (as an upcoming bullfighter Dona Ana is about to leave Juan for) which is charged with sex.
What redeems the movie, in my opinion, is the professional gloss Darryl F. Zanuck and his team gave the film. At this point Tyrone Power was emerging as a box office power house for 20th Century Fox. Zanuck saw to it that Power was surrounded by the studio's best. The entire look of the film, from the poor village where Juan came from, to Dona Ana's luxurious estate, from street scenes to the arena itself is framed beautifully. Everything has that detailed, lavish, almost awe-inspiring perfection that only highly skilled professionals and a lot of studio money can provide. Color is used to create particular palettes for key scenes, often considerably more subtle than the garishness of many early Technicolor films. The actors all do fine jobs. Power, as usual, is earnest, but with his looks it works. Linda Darnell, obviously being groomed by how carefully she is lit and photographed, hasn't much to do but does it well. It's always good to see Laird Cregar being loathsome, and J. Carrol Naish and John Carradine as two old friends are authentic and don't overact. Anthony Quinn in an important role without much screen time makes an impression. And Rita Hayworth almost stops the movie every time she shows up.
Considering that bull fighting is a bloody business, where some people believe killing is an art and courage is not cheapened by spectacle, the movie goes to great lengths not to show us the reality of the picadors slicing into the bull's neck muscles, the animal's blood seeping down its sides, the occasional disemboweling of a picador's horse by the bull, the gorings of the matadors or the sword thrust into the neck of the bull which all too often doesn't kill cleanly and leaves the bull thrashing and trying to stand. The movie does give us a picture of the drama, the man versus animal contest, the roaring blood lust of the crowd and the inner workings of the arena. The average Roman citizen from 150 A.D. might have found it too tame, but he would have appreciated the intentions.
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I respect this movie