Ken West
This is indeed a neglected great movie.As someone whose familiarity with bullfighting consists of some vague Hemmingway, the yearly silly newscasts from Pamplona, and a disgusting half- afternoon in Tijuana, and whose opinion of amusement through the suffering of dumb beasts is decidedly negative, I had to talk myself into watching it. I am very glad I did. It (at least the full 125 minute version) is very compelling. The photography is often mesmerizing, and there are scenes which I know I will remember a long time, such as the when the drunk taunts Estrada to have a go even though his right wrist is useless, following which his wife accosts the drunk with a sword and a speech which, even in Spanish, took my breath away. The many semi-documentary clips are simultaneously fascinating, compelling and repulsive.My main point however, is the magnificent performance of Gilbert Roland as Estrada who has incredible screen presence here, handling the bulls, the drunks, the cocky Yankee, his wife, and his cheroot, often simultaneously, with grace and aplomb -- a truly beautiful character who defines the movie, even after he departs it.Yes, the title is lame and has probably turned off many potential viewers who decided not to bother; but whether or not you are interested in bullfighting, and whether or not you approve of it, do not deny yourself the experience of seeing it.
Robert J. Maxwell
I don't know who made up the dumb title for this pretty good movie but I suspect it was the head of the studio, Herbert J. Yates, known far and wide for his lack of taste. "The Bullfighter and the Lady." He wanted to change the title of John Ford's "The Quiet Man" to "The Prizefighter and the Colleen." He insisted on inserting his wife, Vera Ralston, into movies that were generally so poor that her presence served as small detraction.In this film, directed by Budd Boetticher, torero Manolo (Gilbert Roland) wants to learn how to shoot skeet from American Johnny Regan (Robert Stack). In return, Manolo agrees to teach Regan the fundamentals of bullfighting. Regan turns out to have aficion, and he learns fast. He also gets mixed up with Joy Page as a local senorita, and he finds himself in culture shock, all mixed up by Latin conceptions of masculine honor and politesse. Showing off in the arena, he is responsible for Manolo's painful death by bull horn, but manages to redeem himself later with a particularly skilled performance, and then retires permanently, with Joy Page beside him.Of all the bullfighting movies out there, this is the most didactic. Not that it places too many demands on the viewer, but at least you DO get to know that a veronica is the simplest possible pass. Well, we should learn something about the art -- or the sport, or whatever it is. Boetticher himself was a professional torero. In some ways, he was in real life at least as interesting as any of his actors. He always worked with a small budget and, at one point during the 1970s, found himself in Mexico trying to do a documentary on a famous torero while completely broke. As he put it, it's one thing to sleep in your car and live off roadside burritos when you're 21, but it's quite another to try it in your 40s.Robert Stack isn't bad as the protagonist. In some of the shots, I could swear it was Stack himself doing the passes, rather than a stunt double in a blond wig. Of course this wasn't with a full-grown bull, just a young one. No more than about 500 pounds of bone and muscle. The bulls in the corridas reach about 480 kilograms, which, if my pocket calculator is correct, is half a ton. Who needs it? Stack, though, is not an expressive actor, exactly. With his blond hair and bleached eyebrows his features assume some of the properties of polished chromium. He performs at his best when looking intense, because his eyes slightly bulge. When he laughs, it's clear that he's enacting a role in a movie. Yet, he was an interesting guy too, born in Tokyo, trained in French. He's surprisingly muscular in a Turkish bath, with the build of an archer, a tiny waist, broad shoulders, and major pectorals on his shaved chest. And when he shows Manolo how to shoot skeet, he knows what he's talking about. He was first an actor, but after that came skeet at a competitive level.Gilbert Roland had been around Hollywood too long, had played too many Latin sidekicks, to take any of this very seriously. He breezes through the part, and it comes as a kind of relief.I happen to know a good deal about bullfighting because I have some experience, although, granted, they didn't have many bulls in Newark when I was a kid. In the hinterlands of Mexico, I once spotted a bull (or a steer or cow, some kind of bovine, anyway) in a corral, pulled my car over, hopped the fence, and to amuse my girl friend I began waving my jacket at the animal, calling, "Eh HEH, Toro," and all that. It rather surprised me when the beast noticed and began ambling towards me. I left -- pronto. It made me wonder just exactly why any purportedly sane human being would get into a ring with a half-ton bull, tease it, and then kill it. And none of that "art" stuff either. You want art, you can paint a picture of a bull's head on black velvet. All you can lose is the cost of the velvet and the paint that went on it.
alexandre michel liberman (tmwest)
The Bullfighter and the Lady is a great film that is forgotten. One of the reasons I think is the name of the film, which makes you think of a Walt Disney cartoon. In the fifties you would hear about John Ford or Hitchcock or Hawks being great directors but no one would mention Budd Boetticher and as time is the greatest critic, we can now appreciate how good he was. This is a semi- autobiographical film since Budd was a bullfighter before becoming involved in movies. His first job in Hollywood was as technical adviser for the bullfighting scenes in "Blood and Sand". Robert Stack is an American who becomes friendly with a great matador Gilbert Roland. Stack teaches Roland how to shoot birds and Roland teaches him to bullfight. Stack also falls in love with a woman from Roland's group (Joy Page). Katy Jurado is Roland's wife. As the story flows we see great scenes of bullfighting. Even though I have seen a couple of bullfights in Mexico, I learned much more from seeing this film. The Bullfighter and the Lady should be a model for any film about a dangerous sport. As the film was produced by John Wayne, John Ford (Wayne's great friend) cut about 30 minutes. He told Budd that the reason for this was that the studio would not release the film if it would be any longer. Budd forgave him, but he had the great pleasure of seeing his film restored to the original version before he died. That is how it is shown nowadays
