BLOOD AND SAND

It's not every night that you get to watch a movie starring Zorro, Superman, Dracula, Jack the Ripper, the Hunchback of Notre Dame and Batman villain Dr. Daka. What the hell kind of movie is that, you ask? It's Rouben Mamoulian's lush Technicolor bullfighting melodrama BLOOD AND SAND (1941).

Okay, so none of those characters actually appear in the film but the actors who played them do. Dark, handsome and dashing Tyrone Power starred as Zorro (with BLOOD co-star Linda Darnell) in Mamoulian's THE MARK OF ZORRO (1940). Supporting player George Reeves went on to play Superman on television's THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN (1952-1958). John Carradine was Dracula in two Universal Studios monster mashes: THE HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1944) and THE HOUSE OF DRACULA (1945), while Laird Cregar was Jack the Ripper in THE LODGER (1944). Anthony Quinn went on to play Quasimodo in THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME (1956) while J. Carroll Naish was Dr. Daka, Batman's first on-screen foe in the 1943 serial BATMAN. In addition to those great actors, BLOOD AND SAND features not one, but two drop-dead gorgeous leading ladies, the dark haired Linda Darnell and the ravishing red head Rita Hayworth.

That's an impressive cast for this compelling drama which charts the rise and fall of a brash young Spanish bullfighter. Juan Gallardo (Power), dreams of becoming a bull fighter like his dead father. He faces many obstacles but eventually achieves his goal, becoming the greatest bullfighter in all of Spain. He marries his childhood sweetheart, Carmen (Darnell) and all seems well. But Gallardo's fame carries a heavy price as he's soon seduced by the rapacious Dona Sol des Muire (Hayworth). Before you know it, Gallardo's lost everything but Carmen who still loves him, no matter what. Gallardo is determined to fight one last bull and then retire to live the rest of his life with Carmen. But things do not go well for Gallardo. After all, the title is BLOOD AND SAND.

BLOOD AND SAND is a handsomely mounted production, overseen by 20th Century Fox studio head Darryl F. Zanuck. The studio spared no expense to bring the story (previously filmed in the silent era in 1922 with Rudolph Valentino in the lead) to lush and vivid life. The story takes time to develop, starting with Gallardo as a young boy with a "posse" of friends, one of whom grows up to be John Carradine while another later becomes Anthony Quinn. There are several well staged bullfight sequences (coached by Budd Boetticher, who would later go on to direct several outstanding Westerns with Randolph Scott). Rotund character actor Laird Cregar practically steals the show as the flamboyant newspaper critic Natalio Curro. But ultimately, BLOOD AND SAND belongs to the love triangle of Power, Darnell and Hayworth, which simmers with real erotic tension.

BLOOD AND SAND is an old-fashioned Hollywood epic, the kind of picture you can get lost in for 125 minutes. I'd never seen it before watching the other night and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Highly recommended.