Blood and Sand
Directed by Rouben Mamoulian
Written by Jo Swerling based on a novel by Vicente Basco Ibañez
1941/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
First viewing/Netflix rental
[box] Garabato: The bull is not the beast! Look at the crowd! That is the real beast![/box]
The technicolor and the spectacle are grand but I couldn’t get caught up in the story.
Juan (Tyrone Power) is an illiterate country boy with talent and one burning ambition – to become the number one bullfighter in Spain. He marries his adoring childhood sweetheart Carmen (Linda Darnell) and starts climbing the ladder to success. In this he is aided by glowing praise from Spain’s preeminent bullfight critic, Curro (Laird Cregar). His inevitable downhill slide begins with his affair with society tramp and femme fatale Doña Sol (Rita Hayworth). Juan goes deeply into debt and begins drinking. Can he redeem himself for one final triumph in the ring? With John Carridine as one of Juan’s company of assistants in the ring, J. Carroll Naish as a washed-up bullfighter, and Anthony Quinn as the next great thing.
The script captures Spain and Spanish machismo very well but for some reason the dialogue rang false to me. Or maybe it was the performances that seemed forced. At any rate, this is certainly a colorful film to look at. The commentary on the Fox DVD is one of the only ones delivered by a cinematographer and it was fascinating to hear him describe the techniques that must have been used to get the shots.
Blood and Sand won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography, Color. It was nominated for Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Color.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARmht4chaVA
Trailer
