Blood and Sand
Blood and Sand was a
1922 silent movie produced by
Paramount Pictures, directed by
Fred Niblo and starring
Rudolph Valentino,
Lila Lee and
Nita Naldi. It was based on the Spanish
1909 novel Blood and Sand (
Sangre y arena) by
Vicente Blasco Ibáñez.
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Rudolph Valentino as Juan Gallardo |
Juan Gallardo (
Rudolph Valentino), a village boy born into poverty, grows up to become one of the greatest
matadors in
Spain. He marries a friend from his childhood, the beautiful and virtuous Carmen (
Lila Lee), but after he achieves fame and fortune he finds himself drawn to
Doña Sol (
Nita Naldi), a wealthy, seductive
widow. They embark on a torrid affair with rather
sadomasochistic overtones, but Juan, feeling guilty over his betrayal of Carmen, tries to free himself of Doña Sol. Furious at being rejected, she exposes their affair to Carmen and Juan's mother, seemingly destroying his marriage. Growing more and more miserable and dissipated, Juan becomes reckless in the arena and is eventually killed in a bullfight but does manage to reconcile with Carmen moments before he dies.
There is also a subplot involving a local outlaw whose career is paralleled to Juan's throughout the film by the village philosopher: Juan's fatal injury in the bullring comes moments after the outlaw is shot by the police.
Blood and Sand proved very successful at the
box office. It was
parodied in
1922 by
Stan Laurel in
Mud and Sand and in
1924 by
Will Rogers in the
Hal Roach short film Big Moments From Little Pictures.
Blood and Sand was remade twice: the
1941 version was directed by
Rouben Mamoulian and starred
Tyrone Power,
Linda Darnell and
Rita Hayworth; the
1989 Spanish remake was directed by
Javier Elorrieta and starred
Chris Rydell,
Sharon Stone and
Ana Torrent.
