PLAZA THEATRE

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 178, 24 April 1942, Page 10

PLAZA THEATRE

In the days when Will Hays was just Will Hays and not an institution to protect the morals of the world's filmgoers, a Latin ex-waiter by the name of Valentino made a picture called "Blood and Sand.” It. was Sultry Sex of the first order, and the box office played a merry jingling tune. ■ . Twenty years later, in 1942, Blood and Sand,” comes back to the screen, this time embroidered with colour and sound. But the same aura of man-and-wonian hangs over it, eo much so, in fact, that one suspects that the noble-minded Mr. Hays must have been looking the other way when it was released, or that he is becoming old and wearying of hie eflorts to reform the world. For the new Blood and Sand,” now in its second week.at the Plaza Theatre, pretends to be neither more nor less than the animal fascination of a very beautiful woman tor a matador versus the pure love of a nice girl for a little boy who has happened to grow up into Spain s most famous bull-fighter. • First prize must go to the colour. It has been used to the utmost advantage the red wine spilling down the newspaper critic’s bibulous lace, the whitefrocked beauty in the dusky blue Spanish night and the red blood on the yellow sand in the final fade-out. Tyrone Power is the matador, illiterate, vain and childish, whose prowess with the bulls is only matched by his more gentle technique jj'ith women. Linda Darnell is again condemned to be the sweet, long-suffering heroine, while Rita Hayworth, as h perfect advertisement for the latest in foundation garments, is the sultry vamp who would have delight-” ed even the fastidious Valentino. Nazimova, a page from the past, is excellent as the matador’s understanding mother. A word of praise, too, for the youngster who played the matador as a boy. Me was almost better than Power.

“She Knew All the Answers,” which opens today at the King s Theatre, and “Test Pilot” and “Jail House Blues,” at the Paramount, will be reviewed in Monday’s paper.