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Such a frustrating disappointment

Best movie ever!

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Before he took up working with Randolph Scott and making some classic westerns, Budd Boetticher wrote and directed this remarkable film for Republic Pictures about bullfighting. Bullfighter And The Lady is distinguished for its graphic depiction about life in the circled arena, what the bullfighters do to attain greatness in the sport and their adulation in Latin in this case specifically Mexican culture.Robert Stack who in real life was a skeet shooting champion is in Mexico on holiday and meets up with the number one in bullfighting Gilbert Roland who is about to retire at the top. Stack offers to teach Roland shooting and he wants to learn bullfighting at least enough of it to impress senorita Joy Page who he's pursuing.In the end Stack's pursuit of a little conquest leads to tragedy.As Mexico's number one Torrero, Gilbert Roland has some of his finest moments on the big screen. He really dominates this film as the fatalistic bullfighter who knows you can go in just once too often. Katy Jurado gives a dignified and restrained performance of his wife.Although Stack is fine as the Yankee playboy the role would have been perfect for Tyrone Power who had those hero/heel parts down pat over at 20th Century Fox. I can't believe that this was not offered to Power, but perhaps Darryl Zanuck demanded too much for his services.Herbert J. Yates over at Republic was a pinch penny businessman and the version usually seen of Bullfighter And The Lady is at least a half hour shorter than the director's cut I saw. I have to say though the film did run over long for me.Still it's a fine bit of film making with big kudos to Gilbert Roland and Budd Boetticher going out.

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.

This is a great film showing the horrors of bullfighting with excellent photography and directed by a former bullfighter himself, Budd Boetticher. John Wayne produced this picture but did not appear in this film and presented a film that was originally cut into pieces but has been restored to its original print, which is seen today. Robert Stack, (Johnny Regan) plays the role as a U.S. Citizen who has connections with Hollywood and has become interested in becoming a bullfighter and so he travels to Mexico to met a real famous matador. Johnny meets up with Manolo Estgrada, (Gilbert Roland) at a famous eating place and forces his attentions to Manolo in order to become friendly with him and to break into his inner circles of life. It it not very long before Johnny makes an arrangement with Manolo to teach him how to shoot birds in exchange for Matador lessons. This film goes into great detail about how to fight a bull and the dangers of the sport in Mexico. Johnny also meets up with a woman he falls in love with at first sight and just can't get her out of his mind both day in and day out, this woman is Anita De La Vega, (Joy Page) who does keep a distance from Johnny, but things do warm up between these two couples. Great film and a wonderful Classic Bullfighting film with great realism. Enjoy.

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.