BLOOD AND SAND (1922) ***1/2 In a film absolutely saturated with brilliant elements, the (recently added?) musical score may be the greatest of them all. Rising, segmented but repetitive with little variation in the most spectacularly diverse settings, profound and dripping pathos like an ancient newborn. Rudolph Valentino is a poseur in the most exalted sense of the term: like Johnny Thunders or George Hamilton, Raquel Welch. There's an incredible sense of timing in that, this magical clock immeasurable in even milliseconds of when to.hesitation is part of it, recoil, sense the madness of it all, take stock like electric shock. I can't say that I'm any part of the natural constituency for matador movies (I admire Barcelona for discontinuing bullfights, and saving all their courage up for the fascists), but.beware of devil-women. Or you're going to pay. Why, oh why, would a man with a wife like Lila Lee-beautiful and sweet and sleek and all giant doe-eyes like Linda Ronstadt-even conceivably notice an oafette like Nita Naldi? Lila is nicer, smarter, more beautiful, she's got that appealing vibe.but Nita has that repellent one, and there's no denying that the accursed are attracted to that. So you've got this guy who's the pinnacle of over-playing his part squirming through a plot that's more operatic than cinematic to the accompaniment of this grand and swelling score. Wow!
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