SanEat A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Hattie I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Rexanne It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

edwagreen Even in the ring of criticism of this 1941 film, what's all the shouting about?This is basically a run-of-the mill story that has been greatly over-rated through the years.In my opinion, the film goes downhill rapidly when Juan, Tyrone Power, meets up with Rita Hayworth, who is nothing more than a seductive temptress here.As a young boy, Juan showed his arrogance, his defiance and feelings of superiority. He goes off to Madrid comes home 10 years later, a success, though illiterate. Marrying his childhood sweetheart, Linda Darnell, and having a good life, he throws it all away when he meets up with the Hayward character, essentially a woman who gets bored easily and casts people aside like an old shoe.

weezeralfalfa I presume the title comes from the last few frames, which focus on a patch of blood, presumably from the bull that matador Manolo(Tony Quinn) supposedly just dispatched, that stains the sandy floor of the arena.An overlong, rather dreary, tale of a poor boy who achieves his dream of becoming recognized as Spain's most popular matador, then allows his life to be completely undone by a heartless superrich femme fatale(Rita Hayworth). Despite being filmed in Technicolor(still rare at this time), and featuring a number of top lead and supporting actors, it's just not much fun nor terribly interesting. It does presumably provide a reasonably authentic snapshot of the world of Spanish bullfighting, and the accompanying party atmosphere. It would seem to belong to the genre of biblical, medieval, or ancient Rome or Egypt-themed spectacles of the '50s and '60s, often with classic tales of a charismatic male leader undone by a heartless vampish or ambitious woman.Not only is the ending a tragedy, most of the main characters come off as either unattractive personalities, sometimes combined with physical beauty, or are miscast. John Carridine: that mainstay of rural America, seems quite out of place, as the friend of lead Juan(Tyrone Power). His death in the arena is one of several strong hints that Juan's death will soon follow. Juan, although he achieves his goal of becoming Spain's most popular matador, comes across as a braggart, bully, illiterate one dimensional fool, and adulterer. Also, his ambition caused his wife and mother much fear of his early death, as happened with his matador father. For about the first quarter of the film, Juan is played by 22nd-billed Rex Downing, who bears little physical resemblance to Tyrone Power, who plays Juan as a young man. Although Power is often described as uncommonly handsome, he can look quite menacing, as often toward the film end. Rita Hayworth, in her first Technicolor film, is portrayed as a snobbish superwealthy femme fatale(Dona Sol), whose only goal in life seems to be to seduce the most handsome celebrity male of the moment, as her 'boy toy', then discard him after his star is fading, for a new 'victim'. I found her character utterly unappealing, often with an arrogant phony-looking smile. Before she met Juan, her 'boy toy' was played by handsome George Reeves: a failed wanna be Hollywood leading man, who later gained fame as Superman, in the original TV series. Near film's end, her next intended 'victim' was Manolo, the new Matador superstar, and former playmate of Juan, who broke with Juan some time ago, jealous of his greater success. Although she played somewhat similar characters in "You Where Never Lovelier", and "My Gal Sal', released the following year, they were much more enjoyable films. If I were Juan, I would have been more than satisfied with the beautiful loyal Carmen(Linda Darnell), not be tempted by a fickle Dona. They definitely should have cast someone less appealing than Linda as Juan's wife, to provide greater contrast with Dona. Actually, Juan seems as attracted to Dona's wealth and playboy lifestyle and influence on the bullfighting business, as by her beauty. He wanted to join her 'jet set', despite his illiteracy and general unsophistication. This led to his neglecting practicing his bull fighting skills, and ultimate death in the arena. It would have been a nice touch if Dona had also experienced a career-shattering fate, as in the case of her equivalents in "The Egyptian", or "Cleopatra".Rotund Laird Cregar shows up every now and then, as the obnoxious loud-mouthed influential bullfighting critic Natalio, who could make or break the reputation of a matador by his newspaper writings and harangues. Cregar plays it well, but again, we have an utterly unlikeable main character. Cregar was much more fun as Gooseberry, with pal Radisson(Paul Muni), in the Canadian wilderness, in "Hudson Bay", filmed that same year.Periodically, there is a traditional Spanish fiesta or music. However, it's nothing exceptional, if you have seen and heard such before. Also, there was very little real comedy. For me, the most humorous scene was when Juan fell asleep to Dona's guitar playing and singing, during their first intimate date. Dona made sure that didn't happen again! Both Juan's mother and wife often prayed to a statue of Our Lady of Hope(one incarnation of the Virgin Mary) before Juan's or Juan's father's performances. She derives from an apparition in the night sky, seen by a variety of village children, but not adults, during the darkest days, for France, of the Franco-Prussian War.I enjoyed some of the films starring Power in the late '30s. But most of his films thereafter I find boring, including "The Sun Also Rises", which also emphasized bull fighting, and "Yank in the RAF", released the same year as this film. This was young Linda's third film with Power.As another reviewer pointed out, most of the actors playing the main roles died or became largely incapacitated well before their time. This includes Power, Rita, Linda, George Reeves and Cregar. The latter died at 31, of a heart attack, following a crash weight loss program and resulting GI surgery, in an effort to escape his cast typing as a heavy heavy.

Steffi_P It is often supposed that silent pictures are the more stylised, elegant and wordless medium when compared to their talkie counterparts, but this is not always the case. Silent movies could sometimes be clunky and overly blunt in their expression, and there were many visually graceful sound pictures. This 1941 version of Vincente Blasco Ibáñez's novel Blood and Sand, previously filmed as a silent in 1922, is a case in point.The first thing that strikes you about Blood and Sand is its breathtaking look. The Oscar-winning Technicolor cinematography of Ernest Palmer and Ray Rennahan brings layers of texture to even the dark shape of the bull's head in the opening scene, and picks out smooth whites like sculpted cream. Even the day-for-night filming (usually awful in early colour movies) doesn't look too bad. Then there is the glorious production design of Richard Day, Joseph Wright and Thomas Little which, rather than dazzling us with the array of shades available in three-strip Technicolor, sticks to two main colours – a rich dark blue and a sandy brown, both gorgeous tones which complement each other – and the story's natural surroundings – perfectly.Orchestrating these colours is director Rouben Mamoulian. Mamoulian was far more interested in style and appearance than he was in story or drama, and this is forgivable because by this point he did style better than almost anyone else in Hollywood. He uses those two tones – the blue and the brown – to regulate the colour temperature, carefully arranging props, players and camera so that the different shades flow on and off the screen. See how for example the young Gallardo creeps through the cold blue of the town, into the warm glow of the tavern, a woman in a yellowy-brown dress dancing into the centre of the screen. The movements of the actors are not only there for theatrical expressiveness (although there is that), but they also help to shift the colours around – Linda Darnell pulling up her shawl to bring total gloom to the chapel, or a blue curtain being pulled back to reveal a rack of golden matador outfits.However, speaking of theatrical expressiveness, Mamoulian did like to encourage such flamboyance from his cast. Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell and Rita Hayworth, big stars as they were, were not really great actors, but that's OK because all they are really required to do here is fill particular types. Power need be little more than a tower of swaggering masculinity, Hayworth need only be coolly alluring, and so on. The immense theatricality of the supporting cast is itself a boon. Only a director like Mamoulian would think of something so brilliantly corny as having the mortally wounded Nacional below a crucifix, his outstretched arms mimicking the Christ position, but it takes a grand old ham like John Carradine to make the pose look fitting.However, the area in which this version of Blood and Sand best distinguishes itself above its silent predecessor is in its writing and structure. The 1922 picture was in fact very stylishly directed by the great yet unsung Fred Niblo, and was superbly edited by a young Dorothy Arzner. However, it was extremely wordy (as in lots of intertitles) and contained much of the preachiness of the novel as well as one or two awkward subplots. The screenplay for 1941 on the other hand, written by the accomplished Jo Swerling, is a model of balance and succinctness. The inclusion of Gallardo's beginnings as a teenage wannabe are a good trade-in for the meanderings of the silent version, and they fully flesh out the rise-and-fall story arc. A couple of reminders of these early days towards the end of the picture add to the poignancy of the finale. This Blood and Sand is also complemented with many long wordless sections – the young Gallardo's bullfight in the dark, Dona Sol's hypnotic guitar performance (and later some genuine guitar playing by Vincente Gómez) and Hayworth's provocative dance with Anthony Quinn. Eventually, the picture begins to take on an intense, operatic quality, in which words become transcended by images. It is a full expression of cinema as a visual medium.

jpdoherty 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.