Blood and Sand (1941)

You have to wait over 20 minutes for Tyrone Power’s entrance in Blood and Sand, but it’s a good one: a close-up of Power grinning like FDR, his hair oiled and a cigar jutting out of his teeth, framed against a blood-red backdrop. This is the young matador Juan Gallardo, now grown after the opening reels have established his childhood as a bullfighting prodigy. What happens upon Juan’s return to Seville is high Technicolor drama: success in the ring, romance with a childhood sweetheart (Linda Darnell), and then temptation in the arms of a dangerous temptress (Rita Hayworth).

The film is, of course, a remake of the silent 1922 Rudolph Valentino hit, but there’s no mistaking it for that one: not least because of the torrid tones of the Oscar-winning cinematography by Ernest Palmer and Ray Rennehan, and the equally lush score by Alfred Newman. The director here is Rouben Mamoulian, whose operatic style meshes with the subject–bullfighting–and the old-school approach to heavy-breathing melodrama. The movie’s a little too operatic for pacing purposes, and that opening definitely goes on too long. But the attractions include Rita Hayworth reveling in the bad-girl role; you can hardly blame Juan Gallardo for wandering, even if Linda Darnell is fully in her early-career lusciousness. And then there’s Anthony Quinn, who swims around Gallardo like a shark sniffing blood. Tyrone Power is physically right for the role, and his steadfast earnestness suits the character. If it all seems faintly ludicrous today, it was good enough for box-office success in 1941, keeping Power’s late-1930s winning streak going.