31 Days of Oscar: Blood and Sand (1941). An oil painting that looks like it came to life.

This post is part of the 31 Days of Oscar Blogathon, hosted by Once Upon a Screen, Outspoken and Freckled and Paula’s Cinema Club. It runs Feb. 1 – Mar. 3, in conjunction with Turner Classic Movies’ 31 Days of Oscar. Please click on envelope on the side bar to learn more.

Blood and Sand (1941). is a Technicolor film produced by 20th Century Fox, directed by Rouben Mamoulian. Cast: Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell, Rita Hayworth, and Alla Nazimova. It is based on the Spanish 1909 novel Blood and Sand by Vicente Blasco Ibanez.

The film won an Academy Award for Best Cinematography. The following breathtaking scenes are what in my opinion helped win the award:

The scenes where Juan's with his group of friends/matadors are sitting in the church while Juan is praying at the altar.

The powerful scene of Nacional laying in bed under a crucifix dying.

Dona Sol, dancing a very sexy dance with matador Manolo, in the Cantina.

Juan turning from the bull as he drags his cape behind him...

The bullfighting scenes are beautifully done...

Also, the last scene in the church..(Don't want to give the ending away)

It was also nominated for Best Art Direction (Richard Day, Joseph C. Wright and Thomas Little).

There are two earlier versions of Blood and Sand: A 1922 version produced by Paramount Pictures, and starring Rudolph Valentino and a 1916 version filmed by Blasco Ibanez, with the help of Max Andre.

This is a story about a young boy Juan Gallardo, who wants to become a bullfighter and follow in his dead father's footsteps.

As a young boy, Juan lying in bed looking up at his fathers poster.

Late one night, Juan, sneaks out of his room to go to the Cantina, wanting to go listen to the bullfighters stories of bravery. He gets into an argument and breaks a bottle of wine over critic Natalio Curro's head, after he talks about his father's lack of talent in the bullring.

Running away with an inch of his life, he swims across the river, dressed only his underwear, to try his skills fighting a bull under the night sky. With his childhood sweetheart Carmen, looking on from her balcony window. Her father steps in and ends the bull fight, but.. complements him on his style.

After causing trouble at the Cantina and with Carmen's father.. Juan, decides he must leave the village but, before he goes.. he promises Carmen, he will return and marry her.

Juan and his friends steal a horse and travel to Madrid, to follow their dreams of becoming a famous bullfighters. Along the way, the horse dies and Juan stops a train, with his bull fighting skills. They ride the train the rest of the way to Madrid.

Ten years later, Juan Gallardo now a matador, returns to Seville by train. Because, he and his friends can not read, they ask a fellow passenger, to read a newspaper article, about the up and coming matadors. It is not very flattering article, so the fellow passenger changes the story, so it sounds as if he received a good review.

Juan, uses his winnings to buy his mother a beautiful home. Now, she no longer has to work as a scrub-woman. He sets up his sister Encarnacion and her fiance Antonio, in their own business. He hires ex-bullfighter Garabato, who has become a beggar, as his manager. He hires a band to serenade his childhood love Carmen and presents her with a beautiful wedding dress. He then shows her the newspaper article and she reads it the way it was written. Angry, he vows that he is going to make the critic Curro eat his words.

Over the next two years, Juan becomes Spain's most famous matador. Even, the critic Curro, brags that he was the one who discovered Juan's talent. While Juan stands before his closet filled with beautiful matador costumes, being dressed by his friend Garabato. Nacional, comes in with a warning about the bulls they are to fight that day in the bull ring. Alone, with his friend Garabato, he admits to being afraid.

Later, Carmen, comes in to wish him luck and to tell him he looks like a king, but.. she is too scared to stay and watch the bullfight.

Next, we see the brave matadors with their capes and the bull, enter the arena...

Man killer Dona Sol de Muira, is sitting in the audience and Juan, blinded by Dona Sol's, beauty, she finds it easy to seduce him.

The next evening, Juan dines at Dona Sol's house and her flavor of the month Captain Pierre Lauren, realizes that he has been replaced and returns her ring.

After, Juan falls asleep on Dona Sol's patio. He wakes alone and decides to leave, but as he walks through her elaborate home, he opens a door, as luck would have it.. it's Dona Sol's bedroom, where she lays sleeping...

The next morning, with a guilty conscience Juan, gives Carmen a necklace and tells her that she is "the only true one in the world", while wearing Dona Sols ring.

Carmen, defends her husband against his family, but.. decides to leave him after she visits Dona to discuss her husband and sees Juan kissing her. Juan, follows his wife home only to find her necklace laying there on the bed.

Juan falls into a deep depression and begins drinking. Garabato, goes to work for Manolo and Don Jose, quits as his manager. Nacional, is the only one who sticks by his friend. Even though, he says that Dona Sol has stolen his killer instinct and at Juan's next bull fight, his mistake in the ring causes Nacional's death.

Dona Sol, also, looses interest in Juan and accepts the offer to dance a passionate Flamenco, with the new up and coming matador Manolo de Palma. Juan, angrily throws away her ring, realizing that he has lost her too.

He goes home to find his mother scrubbing floors of the house that they have been evicted from. Juan, then goes to Carmen to beg for forgiveness, she still loves him and takes him back. He tells her he must have one final bull fight to prove to himself.. that he is still a great matador. Will he prove himself or like his father before him.. die in the bull ring?