Evening star., 1951-06-21

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Director Robert Rossen, who
made "All The Kings Men," has
found another story worthy ot
his camera virtuosity in Tom
Lea's 1.-The Brave Bulls"
The latest Rossen screenplay.
which opened yesterday at the
Dupont theater, is not precise
dramatic match for its prede-
cessor but it is an absorbing work
on theme happily removed from
the rut of film narratives.
1.-THE Brave Bulls" is a search
ing, revealing study of bull-fght-
ing in Mexico. 1t deals with the
tremendous fervor of an emotional
people, the Mexicans, put into a
pastime that is far more than a
sport It's drama centers in three
groups. the overwhelming au-
diences, the bullf1ghters and the
proud, fighting animals who are
bred for the purpose of testing
mans courage as the Mexicans
define courage.
The key figure in this expansive
pageant play is matador played
by Mel Ferrer. He is the idol of
the Mexicans, this Luis Bello, and
as Ferrer exposes his very human
heart, he makes Bello a motion
picture character to remember
long after most such have been
forgotten.
"The Brave Bulls" misses great
ness, however, in spite of its I'M
deniable merits as screen material.
That it does so may lay in the
fact that it has made too many
concessions to the conventional
film formula, notably in a love
story that is not fractionally as
interesting as the real bull-f1ghting
scenes and those set on the great
ranches where Mexico's brave bulls
are bred.
There is the usual documentary
authenticity in most of Rossen's
work in 1.-THE Brave Bulls" His
cameras peer deeply into all
aspects of Mexico's fascination
with fighting, the ranches,
the clubs, the homes, the arenas,
the night spots frequented by the
matadors, and the remote pro-
vincial bull rings which provide
the climaxes of so many native
festivals.
Ferrer's hero character is never
far from the camera lenses. He
is an engrossing figure, a bull
fighter with the skill Of a cham
pion yet with the feelings of a.
poet and touches of the philos-
opher in him. All the adulation
of the Mexicans cannot remake
him into the national image Of
himself.
This Luis Bello is human. Un-
like the bulls he fights, he has not
been bred for generations merely
to fight and kill. This sort of
blood stream bravado is for ami
mails. Bello is first and last a
man. He is afraid. almost NOR
tally and every time he fights a
more ferocious animal than the
last one. it represents that much
more the glory of a mans courage
in the face of death.
This is the dramatic point of
the picture and if it sometimes
seems too severely labored, it is
nevertheless firmly made in ''The
Brave Bulls"
1t leaves no doubt that for the
ecstasy the Mexicans get out of
it. an intelligent sensitive mata-
dor and a noble fighting animal
go through their respectively pri-
vate hells.
The private life of Matador
Bello is as carefully scrutinized as
is his public one in THE Brave
Bulls" Here, too, Ferrer's hero
is human. He is subject to the
same preying kinfolk as any other
successful family man and the
same petulances against them. He
is suspicious of his agent and
hates himself for it. He is moody
and often annoyed with the cloy-
ing attentions of an adoring pub
lie and his reaction is the human
one of getting drunk and mean
tempered about it all.
The greatest vulnerability of
this human creation, however. is
In his romantic nature. For all
his gifts of sensitiveness and in
telligence, he can be taken in by
a passionate, lacquered blond, a
new one named Miroslava and an
UNDERSTANDABLE successful one.
Rossen's picture may go too
thoroughly into this phase OF
Bello's biography. It is the pic
lures outstanding weakness that
he does, but its strength elsewhere
leaves it with a safe margin OF
deep dramatic interest.