Publisher's Synopsis
Vicente Blasco Ibanez (29 January 1867 - 28 January 1928) was a journalist, politician and best-selling Spanish novelist in various genres whose most widespread and lasting fame in the English-speaking world is from Hollywood films adapted from his works. Sangre y arena (es) (Blood and Sand, 1908), follows the career of Juan Gallardo from his poor beginnings as a child in Seville, to his rise to celebrity as a matador in Madrid, where he falls under the spell of the seductive Dona Sol, which leads to his downfall. Ibanez directed a 65-minute film version in 1917. There are three remakes made in 1922, 1941 and 1989, respectively. His greatest personal success probably came from the novel Los cuatro jinetes del Apocalipsis (The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse) (1916), which tells a tangled tale of the French and German sons-in-law of an Argentinian land-owner who find themselves fighting on opposite sides in the First World War. When this was filmed by Rex Ingram in 1921, it became the vehicle that propelled Rudolph Valentino to stardom. Rex Ingram also filmed Mare Nostrum - a spy story from 1918 - in 1926 as a vehicle for his wife Alice Terry at his MGM studio in Nice. Michael Powell claimed in his memoirs that he had his first experience of working in films on that production. A further two Hollywood films can be singled out, as they were the first films that were made by Greta Garbo following her arrival at MGM in Hollywood -The Torrent (based on Entre naranjos from 1900), and The Temptress (derived from La Tierra de Todos from 1922). Blood and Sand Translator: Frances Douglas Mare Nostrum Translator: Charlotte Brewster Jordan The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse Translator: Charlotte Brewster Jordan
