A tale of Alta California, the Mexican Governor’s
oppressions are opposed at Capistrano by a nobleman who rallies the rest and
ousts him.
As the Scarlet Pimpernel of Old California, perhaps
he should have been called Copa de Oro (Eschscholzia californica,
the present State flower).
Fairbanks is intensely amusing as languid Don Diego
with his handkerchief tricks, “Have you seen this one?” It all goes
loftily into such films as Tessari’s Zorro,
on this perfect basis.
Blood and Sand
An admirable study of temperament, a comedy
of mores, masked after all in the manner of Resnais’ American uncle
as a critique of the Toreo.
Niblo has a drop of verisimilitude to add fizz, he
presses the grapes firmly in flat compositions that have disarmed the
discerning because—well, at eighty minutes’ running time, the
bloody thing skirts by lickety-split as though it were in a hurry, tintings and
all, signed nevertheless by the Museum of Modern Art in New York.