Blood and Sand (1922)

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Juan is the son of a poor widow in Seville. Against his mother's wishes he pursues a career as toreador. He rapidly gains national prominence, and takes his childhood sweetheart Carmen as his bride. He meets the Marquis' daughter Dona Sol, and finds himself in the awkward position of being in love with two women, which threatens the stability of his family and his position in society.Dorothy Arzner worked as the film's editor. Arnzer used stock footage of bullfights filmed in Madrid interspersed with close-ups of Valentino. Her work on the film helped to solidify her reputation of being a resourceful editor as her techniques also saved Paramount money. She would later say that working on the film was the "first waymark to my claim to a little recognition as an individual." What strikes me about that is how "stock footage" existed by the early 1920s. How was there already footage of various things without copyright? Or perhaps there was copyright, but a fee to use it was small? This just seems strange, and yet it is apparently true.

Why is this movie one of my favorite silent movies? For a start, it was one of Rudolph Valentino's best performances! I consider his other best performances to be in "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" and "The Eagle", although, of the movies in which I have seen him, he never gave a bad performance-some were just better than others! As the doomed bullfighter, he is perfect! Then there were the two leading ladies, both very good in their roles-Lila Lee, as the suffering wife, and Nita Naldi, as the seductress. Finally, there was Walter Long, memorable as a bandit friend of the bullfighter. I don't know if sound affected his career, but, in the silent movies in which I have seen him, he was very good! The only flaw in this movie was a ridiculous seduction scene, but, if one can overlook it, this movie will prove to be a very worthwhile movie!

Rudolph Valentino (1895-1926) plays a bullfighter Juan Gallardo 'Zapaterin', who is really good at what he does.He falls in love with Carmen, played by Lila Lee (1901-1973), a girl he's known since childhood.But then an other woman shows interest on him, a true vamp who goes by the name of Doña Sol, played by Nita Naldi (1897-1961).And of course Juan becomes interested of her, too.Soon his loving feelings turn into hate.This woman just won't let go.Eventually Carmen finds out what has been going on between Juan and this woman.In the end, Juan is dying after a bullfight and Carmen is there by his side, Doña wouldn't care less.Fred Niblo's Blood and Sand from 1922 is a brilliant silent movie with some drama, romance and sport.The actors do a perfect job.Rudolph Valentino is marvelous.He was a teen idol of his time, who was idolized by half the world.He died tragically awfully young in 1926 to blood poisoning.He was only 31 and half the world mourned.Nita Naldi and Lila Lee are both very beautiful and they also could act very well.In the silent days the eyes had a big part, and in this one they all handle the eye work perfectly.And the dramatic music makes it all better.Blood and Sand is a thrill for all the Valentino fans and for those who don't require any dialog in the movie.

With the exception of Julio in "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse," Juan Gallardo is perhaps the most three dimensional role Rudolph Valentino ever played. The story is familiar, even predictable enough: a young Spaniard is born poor, achieves fame and fortune as a matador, marries a nice convent girl, is beguiled by a truly nasty society woman (who basically collects and discards him), loses his will to fight in the arena and dies soon after a reconciliation with his long suffering wife. But Valentino brings this rather clichéd character to life: he is convincing as the happy go lucky, apparently shiftless teenaged Juan, as the young man celebrated as the greatest bullfighter in Spain, confident and thoroughly enjoying his new wealth and fame, as the besotted wooer of his childhood friend Carmen, and as the suddenly uncertain, ill at ease lover of the wealthy Dona Sol whom he nonetheless cannot free himself from. (At times his degradation suggests that of the professor in "The Blue Angel.") His range is perhaps most apparent in the love scenes: he is tender and considerate when he is caressing his nervous bride on their wedding night but sadistic and brutish when taunted by his kinky mistress who wants him to beat her (the dialogue here is undeniably purple —at one point Juan calls Dona Sol "a serpent from hell"—but it somehow fits Juan's basic personality which is impassioned and unsophisticated). Valentino even gets to show his flair for comedy when he romps with the little boys who play his nephews. In short, his wide ranging performance in "Blood and Sand" puts to the rest the myth that as a actor he can do little more than wear clothes well and glare.However, although Valentino's performance is compelling, there are problems with "Blood and Sand" that keep it from being a truly great film. First, considering that this is a movie about bull fighting, the fighting scenes were, unfortunately, weak and consisted of awkwardly spliced in footage of actual fights (in fairness to the producers, animal cruelty laws had recently been introduced that prevented the filming of scenes with actual bulls). An even more serious problem is that the script (using a portentous old busybody as a mouthpiece) would have us believe that Juan's downfall is somehow inherently tied in to the cruelty of bullfighting itself--that by living by such savagery Juan would inevitably die by it. The objections to the inhumanity of bullfighting may have been well intended, but as set forth Juan's decline and fall have little to do with this—he flounders because, perhaps not unlike some modern superstar athletes from humble backgrounds, his newfound wealth and fame lead him to make rash, ill advised decisions such as betraying his devoted wife to become involved with an upper class woman who enjoys slumming with him but will never consider him as an equal or take him seriously as a man. (If anything is condemned in "Blood and Sand" it is the cruelty of social caste: Juan found wealth and fame, but he is still very much the social inferior of the likes of Dona Sol, and one of the reasons why he finds it hard to say no to her is not just because he is sexually in thrall to her but because in this near feudal society she is his better—in fact he is told so directly when, resisting Dona Sol's initial attempt to meet him he is bluntly told that it would be unseemly for him to snub a woman of her position. Something of this sort is also happening, I think, when, immediately after the affair is revealed, he mortifies his wife by humbly waiting on Dona Sol).Despite the above problems, this is still one of the more memorable films of the silent period and worth owning on DVD. (I recommend the Kino version which includes a commentary by Orson Welles and a parody with Will Rogers).