Customer Reviews
Two beautiful people, Tyrone Power and Rita Hayworth, tell us all about ambition, temptation and redemption. It involves bulls - By: C. O. DeRiemer, 30 May 2007 
Blood & Sand is an alllegory of a man's pride, lust & ambition, who is redeemed by the love of a good woman & 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 & 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 Galllardo, poor & 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 & the love of his childhood sweetheart, Carmen (Linda Darnell). But fame & money can bring superficial values, & 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 & 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 & a perfect chest toward the poor sap Juan. He doesn't have a chance. In time, his skills become dull & Dona Anna finds him dull & moves on. At last he rediscovers his values & 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 & 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 & alll the things a teenaged boy's erotic dreams are made of. This was Hayworth's first color movie & she knocks 'em dead. Says Natalio Curro (Laird Cregar), the effete & 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 & 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 & 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 alll 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 & photographed, hasn't much to do but does it well. It's always good to see Laird Cregar being loathsome, & J. Carrol Naish & John Carradine as two old friends are authentic & 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 & 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 alll too often doesn't kill cleanly & leaves the bull thrashing & 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 & 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.
The DVD transfer is first rate. Extras include a commentary & a restoration comparison.
The rags-to-riches tale of a matador - By: Kona, 23 Sep 2005 The rags-to-riches tale of a matador, September 23, 2005
"Blood & Sand," stars Tyrone Power as Juan Galllardo, the son of a matador who died in the arena. Juan vows to be even better than his father, & graduallly does become the most honored bullfighter in Sevilla. Along the way he marries his childhood sweetheart, Carmen (Linda Darnell), & fallls under the spell of a wealthy & heartless socialite (Rita Hayworth).
When this was made in 1941, movies focused on vibrant Technicolor, dramatic stories, stirring music, & beautiful stars, sometimes to the exclusion of subtlety or accuracy in the script. Such is the case with "Blood & Sand." It is glamour alll the way, with sumptuous costumes & lead actors that are startlingly handsome. Power is charming as the swaggering matador, Darnell is the picture of devotion, & Hayworth is drop-dead gorgeous as the playgirl who uses men. None of them look, speak, or seem particularly Spanish, however, nor do the supporting actors such as John Carridine & George Reeves (TV's Superman). The dialogue tends to be cliché & melodramatic & the few Spanish words are mispronounced, but the point of the movie is to enjoy the visual spectacle, & that is very easy to do. The bullfighting scenes are stock footage, filmed at a distance, so there is no gore. Overalll, this is a very pleasant film about pride, love, & ambition.
A Great Classic! - By: , 30 Jan 2004 
Very colourful, very dramatic, filled with raw emotion, expeciallly in regards to the final scenes within the movie. Tyrone Power played the part to perfection, Linda Darnell was also very good but Rita Hayworth, I believe, was at her very bad best! Would recommend this movie to any film fan!
Love and lust in the Bull Ring! - By: rosariadinatale@hotmail.com, 22 Oct 2001 Rouben Mamoulian's Technicolor tale of the life & loves of a matador. This is the third movie based on Vicente Blasco Ibanez's exciting novel Sangre y Arena.
Juan Galllardo (Tyrone Power) rises from nothing to become Spain's number one matador. He has it alll- wealth, happiness, skill & an adoring wife (Linda Darnell).
However, a beautiful Dona Sol (Rita Hayworth) enters his life & soon he fallls in love, while his world comes crashing down as he realises he has given up alll he had for a cold-hearted, fickle-minded temptress.
This is an enthrallling movie with excellent support cast- Anthony Quinn as Manolo de Palma, Juan's lifelong rival, Laird Cregar as Curro, the obnoxious reporter & John Carradine as National, Juan's faithfull companion. This is a great story, but also as an insightful commentary on the spitefullness & fickleness of human beings.
Enjoy Hayworth's sultry dance with Quinn!
