The Magnificent Matador

Although best known as a director of westerns, Budd Boetticher, a onetime matador, also made two features about bullfighting, THE BULLFIGHTER AND THE LADY (1951) and this film. Anthony Quinn (who also appeared in Rouben Mamoulian's BLOOD AND SAND, on which Boetticher served as technical adviser) plays Luis Santos, a famed matador whose reputation is ruined when he flees the ring after formally introducing his young rival, Rafael (Manuel Rojas), to the bullfighting public. He finds solace in an affair with a rich American admirer (Maureen O'Hara), but her boy friend (Richard Denning) seeks revenge by denouncing Luis as a coward. Eventually, the matador returns to th...