Blood and Sand (1922) starred Rudolph Valentino as torero Juan Gallardo who rises from his poor Seville roots to become the most famous matador in Spain. Still one of the most accurate bullfighting movies ever made, Blood and Sand was based on a novel by Vincente Blasco Ibanez and featured Lila Lee as Gallardo's childhood sweetheart Carmen, who he marries before achieving his greatest successes in the arena. Enmeshed in a world of both sicophantic enablers and guilt, Gallardo begins an affair with wealthy widow Dona Sol, who was played by Nita Naldi, a dark-eyed Irish-Italian vamp, former Ziegfeld Follies girl, model for pin-up artist Vargas, and co-star of Valentino in two other films who is now buried in Calvary Cemetery off Greenpoint Ave. in Queens. 
Blood and Sand was directed by Fred Niblo, an Oklanhoma-born veteran of Vaudeville, Broadway, and Hollywood who directed Douglas Fairbanks in The Mark of Zorro and The Three Musketeers. Remade in 1941 by Rouben Mamoulian (who had a career remaking classic silent movies in sound), the Technicolor film featured Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell, Anthony Quinn, and Rita Hayworth (as Dona Sol). A much better 1941 bullfighting movie, however, is the Cantinflas classic Ni Sangre, Ni Arena (Neither Blood nor Sand), a parody about an unemployed misfit named El Chato who, while running from the police, gets confused for his doppleganger--a famous matador also played by (of course) Cantinflas, albeit sin moustache. Although it is hard to find a subtitled version (if needed) it is just as funny if you don't understand Spanish for, like Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, the humor of Cantinflas is universal. Directed by Alejandro Galindo and shot by Gabriel Figueroa, Ni Sangre, Ni Arena was a smash hit in Mexico. As Betty Kirk wrote for the New York Times on June 15, 1941, the film outgrossed Chaplin's Great Dictator by 70% while also shattering all records for foreign or domestic movies ever released in Mexico. Kirk wondered if the premiere of Neither Blood nor Sand just before the Tyrone Power version "raises the question as to whether this is not a sharp piece of sabotage for the Hollywood movie . . . That the two movies approach the bull fight from opposite poles is still, however, evident, for Blood and Sand deifies the life of the matador, while Ni Sangre, Ni Arena ridicules it." The Valentino Blood and Sand was released on dvd with several extras, including a Will Rogers parody and a fantastic introduction by Orson Welles. I bought the Cantinflas dvd for five dollars in Jackson Heights one rainy afternoon last winter.
Blood and Sand was directed by Fred Niblo, an Oklanhoma-born veteran of Vaudeville, Broadway, and Hollywood who directed Douglas Fairbanks in The Mark of Zorro and The Three Musketeers. Remade in 1941 by Rouben Mamoulian (who had a career remaking classic silent movies in sound), the Technicolor film featured Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell, Anthony Quinn, and Rita Hayworth (as Dona Sol). A much better 1941 bullfighting movie, however, is the Cantinflas classic Ni Sangre, Ni Arena (Neither Blood nor Sand), a parody about an unemployed misfit named El Chato who, while running from the police, gets confused for his doppleganger--a famous matador also played by (of course) Cantinflas, albeit sin moustache. Although it is hard to find a subtitled version (if needed) it is just as funny if you don't understand Spanish for, like Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, the humor of Cantinflas is universal. Directed by Alejandro Galindo and shot by Gabriel Figueroa, Ni Sangre, Ni Arena was a smash hit in Mexico. As Betty Kirk wrote for the New York Times on June 15, 1941, the film outgrossed Chaplin's Great Dictator by 70% while also shattering all records for foreign or domestic movies ever released in Mexico. Kirk wondered if the premiere of Neither Blood nor Sand just before the Tyrone Power version "raises the question as to whether this is not a sharp piece of sabotage for the Hollywood movie . . . That the two movies approach the bull fight from opposite poles is still, however, evident, for Blood and Sand deifies the life of the matador, while Ni Sangre, Ni Arena ridicules it." The Valentino Blood and Sand was released on dvd with several extras, including a Will Rogers parody and a fantastic introduction by Orson Welles. I bought the Cantinflas dvd for five dollars in Jackson Heights one rainy afternoon last winter.
can you talk about cantiflas' version of this?
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