Blood and Sand was the fourth and last film in which Tyrone Power and Linda Darnell worked together. The others were Day-Time Wife (1939), Brigham Young (1940) and The Mark of Zorro (1940).[5]
Plot
As a child, Juan Gallardo wanted to be a bullfighter like his dead father. Before leaving Seville for Madrid to pursue his dream of success in the bullring, he promises his aristocratic child sweetheart Carmen Espinosa that he will return when he is a success and marry her. Ten years later, after achieving success as a matador, Juan returns to Seville. He uses his winnings to help his impoverished family and fulfills his promise to marry Carmen. His fame and wealth grow, and he becomes Spain's most acclaimed matador. As critics heap praises upon Juan's talent, he catches the eye of sultry socialite Doña Sol at one of his bullfights.
Hayworth and Power
Juan is blinded by the attention his fame has brought and Doña Sol finds it easy to lead him astray. He soon neglects his wife, family, and training in favor of her privileged, decadent lifestyle. As a result, his performance in the bullring suffers. Not only does he fall from position as the premier matador of Spain, but his extravagant lifestyle loses his savings, suppliers, and employees. His manager warns Juan that he is headed for destruction but Juan refuses his advice. With falling fame and finances, there comes rejection by everyone once important to him. Even Carmen leaves him, while Doña Sol moves on to new up-and-coming matador Manolo de Palma, one of Juan's childhood friends.
After losing everything, a repentant Juan begs forgiveness and is taken back by Carmen. He promises her to leave bullfighting but wishes to have one final bullfight to prove he is still a great matador. His prayers for one last success, however, are not answered and, like his father before him, he is gored by the bull. Juan dies in the arms of Carmen as the crowd cheers Manolo's victory over the bull. Manolo bows to the fickle crowd near the stain left in the sand by Juan's blood.[6]
“Blood and Sand, more than anything else, is about color. Of all Mamolian’s films, it is the most painterly, the most pictorial.” —Film historian Marc Spergel in Reinventing Reality: The Art and Life of Rouben Mamoulian (1993).[7][8]
Over 30 actresses were considered for the role of Doña Sol, including Gene Tierney and Dorothy Lamour.[9] After Carole Landis, Zanuck's original choice, refused to dye her hair red for the role, Rita Hayworth was cast. Rouben Mamoulian's sets were inspired by the works of painters El Greco, Goya and Velázquez. During shooting, he carried paint spray guns so he could alter the color of props at a moment's notice. He also painted shadows onto walls rather than changing the lighting.[10]
The film's exterior long shots were filmed in Mexico City Plaza de Toros.[11] The famous bullfighter Armillita instructed Power and other cast members and doubled as Power in some of the bullfighting sequences shot on location. Tailor Jose Dolores Perez copied two of Armillita's elaborate matador suits for the film.[11]
Oscar "Budd" Boetticher Jr. served as a technical advisor. This was his first film. He also worked with Power on bullfighting techniques and helped dance director Geneva Sawyer to choreograph the dance between Hayworth and Anthony Quinn.[11]
Rita Hayworth's singing voice was dubbed by Graciela Párraga.[12][13]
Unlike most films at the time, Blood and Sand was not previewed, but premiered uncut at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in May 1941.[10]
A Lux Radio Theatre version of the story, starring Power and his then-wife Annabella as Carmen, was broadcast on October 20, 1941.[11]
Reception
The film was a big hit and earned a profit of $662,500.[1]
Variety praised the picture, adding: "Especially effective are the bullfight arena sequences...Power delivers a persuasive performance as Ibanez's hero while Darnell is pretty and naive as the young wife. Hayworth is excellent as the vamp and catches major attention on a par with Nazimova, who gives a corking performance as Power's mother."[14]
On the other hand, The New York Times' review (signed T.S.)[15] was very negative: "For there is too little drama, too little blood and sand, in it. Instead the story constantly bogs down in the most atrocious romantic cliches... (There are) glimpses of a stunning romantic melodrama with somber overtones. But most of the essential cruelty of the theme is lost in pretty colors and rhetorical speeches...The better performances come in the lesser roles—Laird Cregar as an effeminate aficionado, J. Carrol Naish as a broken matador, John Carradine as a grumbling member of the quadrilla. For one enthralling moment Vicente Gómez, the musician, appears on the screen. If the film had only caught the barbaric pulse of Gómez's incomparable fingers at the guitar, there would be good cause for cheers. Instead it has been content for the most part to posture beautifully...".[15]
Retrospective appraisal
Leonard Maltin gives the film three out of four stars, describing it as a "Pastel remake of Valentino's silent film about naive bullfighter who ignores true love (Darnell) for temptress (Hayworth). Slow-paced romance uplifted by Nazimova's knowing performance as Power's mother; beautiful color production earned cinematographers Ernest Palmer and Ray Rennahan Oscars."[16]
On the influence of Spanish painters
After completing his musical High, Wide and Handsome (1937), Mamoulian traveled to Europe to view its art and architecture. While in Paris, he saw an El Greco exhibit which would inform his chapel sequence in Blood and Sand.[17]
Malmoulian, an amateur painter, reported in a June 1941 interview with American Cinematographer that his sequences in Blood and Sand had been explicitly styled after the Spanish masters, among them Murillo, Goya, Velazquez, and El Greco.[18][19][20]
Take-offs
In the same year, 1941, the Mexican comedian Cantinflas appeared in the Mexican comedy film Ni sangre ni arena ("Neither blood nor sand") a deliberate parody of this picture.[21]
Inspired by Blood and Sand's popularity, The Three Stooges released a short titled "What's the Matador?" with no story connection except bullfighting. It was filmed in August 1941, three months after Blood and Sand was released, but did not come out until April 1942.
Fear and Sand, an Italian comedy film of 1948 starring Totò as a hapless bullfighter, plays only with the title.
^Danks, 2007: “[W]hile his brief tenure at 20th Century-Fox, under the stewardship of Daryl F. Zanuck, in the early 1940s, resulted in two of his most striking and pictorially beautiful works; The Mark of Zorro and Blood and Sand.
^"Blood and Sand". catalog.afi.com. American Film Institute. Retrieved February 3, 2018.
^ abKobal, John (1977). Rita Hayworth: The Time, the Place and the Woman. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. pp. 114–123. ISBN0-393-07526-5.
^Callahan, 2007: “Blood and Sand features intriguing manipulations of color and almost looks like animation at times: Mamoulian chose a different painter to emulate for the various scenes. But the director’s obvious thoughtfulness runs in the wrong direction. As we watch Blood and Sand, it’s clear that carefully recreated paintings do not a movie make; too many of Mamoulian’s flourishes feel unmotivated.”
^Danks, 2007: “[D]espite his much cited affinity for the more solitary art of painting – and how, for example, this influenced and directed the choice of color and composition in the Goya-Velasquez-El Greco-inflected Blood and Sand– Mamoulian was also a showman, perfectly suited to the popularization and adaptation of “high art” forms and sources.”
