OVP: Blood and Sand (1941)

Film: Blood and Sand (1941)
Stars: Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell, Rita Hayworth, Alla Nazimova, Anthony Quinn, J. Carrol Naish, Lynn Bari, John Carradine, Laird Cregar
Director: Rouben Mamoulian
Oscar History: 2 nominations/1 win (Best Cinematography-Color*, Best Art Direction)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2019 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress of Hollywood's Golden Age.  This month, our focus is on Linda Darnell-click here to learn more about Ms. Darnell (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

As we spoke through in the kickoff to Linda Darnell month, Ms. Darnell's career essentially had two acts, one from 1940-43 where she was instantly praised for her unrivaled beauty and given little else to do in films but be ravenous, and then after a hiatus that nearly ended her career, she reclaimed her throne as a matinee idol in the late 1940's when she was given significantly better parts in pictures like Fallen Angel and A Letter to Three Wives before her personal demons made it impossible for any future comebacks.  Due to these gaps, I decided to spread our month into two halves as well, with our first two pictures coming from the fledgling years of Darnell's career, and the final two from after she mounted a comeback.  This week we take a look at another pairing of Darnell with Tyrone Power (whom we saw her with in The Mark of Zorro last Saturday), their final onscreen pairing after four successful pictures, and also a movie with her starring opposite one of the biggest icons of the 1940's, who at that point wasn't famous enough yet to get billing over Darnell, but would soon eclipse her career in pretty much every way imaginable: Rita Hayworth.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is unique in its subject matter in a lot of ways, as it's the rare giant epic that also is clearly a message picture.  We follow Juan Gallardo (Power) from his years as a young child, defending his slain father who was once the greatest bullfighter in Spain.  As he ages, a cocky Juan Gallardo learns to in fact take his father's place, and subsumes him in the national consciousness as one of the greatest matadors of his era.  The movie counters this rise with Juan Gallardo's interactions with women, including his housemaid mother (Nazimova) and bratty sister (Bari, always playing the villainous role, and with three films now in our Saturdays with the Stars series, the unofficial "Forgotten Star" on a series about "forgotten stars" as she won't be getting her own month but probably should have at this point).  He also has two major romantic pursuits Carmen (Darnell), a pious woman whom he marries and has loved since they were children, and Dona Sol (Hayworth), a gorgeous heiress who seems to bounce from man-to-man and has a thing for matadors.

The film is really Power's, and probably shouldn't have been included in this series though technically he shares above-the-line billing with Darnell in virtually every poster I could find.  It was an important picture for both, a huge hit and one that kept them at the top of matinee screens for a few more years, but Power owns the picture in terms of screentime, and Darnell is given little to do.  Even in the ending of the movie, when Power's character dies in a surprisingly solemn finale (we see Anthony Quinn as the next successor to Juan Gallardo, certain to also die at the hands of a bull the same way his former friend did), Carmen has little to do but mourn and weep, and while some would argue that playing a pious woman was a nice change of pace compared to the latter aspects of Darnell's career, it's hard to think of this as her picture, and quite frankly it's not even banking that much on her looks, which was Darnell's complaint at the time.  Certainly when you compare her to Hayworth, given a seedier role but landing it with much more aplomb and glamour.  Hayworth, the superior actress, steals the movie in every conceivable way, and was clearly destined for stardom.  A few months later she'd appear in the massively successful You'll Never Get Rich with Fred Astaire, and wouldn't be relegated to third billing in a movie again for two decades.

The movie received a pair of well-earned Academy Award nominations that year, neither of which were reliant on the staid acting and repetitive screenwriting (though like I said-strong ending).  The cinematography is gorgeous-shot in Technicolor, the bullfight scenes gave me chills and though shot at wide angle (there's no plausible way you'd assume Power was actually onscreen with the dangerous bulls), it works brilliantly.  The love scenes are lensed compellingly, great melodramatic stuff, and honestly even the gaudy touches work with the film.  The same could be said for the art direction-it's terrific to watch all of the stadiums recreated, and you don't really feel like you're on a Hollywood sound stage even when you are.  It's obvious that Blood and Sand was borrowed by other epic directors years later, as the giant, expansive sets of the 1940's/50's are borrowing from this film as much as early DeMille, so there's clear influence going on here, and I loved the cavernous effect they occasionally make to imply Juan Gallardo's life is empty.  Technically the film is very impressive (sound work's great too), but aside from Hayworth the substance of the film is weirdly lacking.