This is a brilliant movie ruined by incredible miscasting. Mel Ferrer was a good actor with a great career and a marriage to Audrey Hepburn, but his casting as the central character in this movie is bizarre. Perhaps it was some sort of deal that Robert Rossen had to cut to get this movie made.
Everything else about this movie, from the script, to the great camera-work by Floyd Crosby and James Wong Howe is fine. It also has a great supporting performance by Anthony Quinn. It's Quinn's casual bravura that dominates this movie and sucks the energy from Ferrer whenever they are on the screen together.
The semi-documentary nature of this movie made Crosby the obvious choice to handle the camera. He had risen to prominence as a cameraman for Robert Flaherty. I am convinced that he shot the outside work and the sequences in the plaza del toro, while Howe's strong, classical lighting and group shots -- which he helped establish in the 1920s -- is used for the story segments.
THE BRAVE BULLS is another of a long series of movies held in high esteem in large part because it has been so hard to see. There are many estimable parts to it, but Ferrer stinks up the joint when compared to Quinn. I suspect that why Mr. Quinn had to go to Europe. Other actors were afraid to work with him.
