The Married Virgin

Rare, earlier Rudy Valentino film from 1918, and one where Rudy gets to play a truly evil character. As the Count Roberto Di Fraccini, he is a fortune hunting gigolo, who uses his sex appeal to seduce a young virgin into becoming his wife. He cares nothing for the innocent girl, but has an eye on her vast inheritance. When blackmailing her father doesn't work, the Count and his lover, (the young girl's mother-in law no less!) devise an evil plan.

High drama, broken hearted damsels, and villains; it's what the Great Era of Silent Cinema was all about. Valentino might have shown more brightly in later, more high profile films like "Four Horsemen of the Apocalaypse" and "Blood & Sand," but here is a chance to see him in a more stark, and edgy performance. It's wonderful that this early film has survived through the years, and has even had a DVD release. "The Married Virgin" is absolute essential viewing For Valentino fans. Another reviewer commented on the 'choppy script' and inconsistencies, but I saw none. Maybe this person saw a different, or incomplete cut of the film. I thought this was near perfect..and it took years for me to acquire this title, but it was worth the effort.

The Married Virgin is worth seeing only for the presence of screen legend Rudolph Valentino in his salad days before stardom. Here he plays a villain, something of what he was in real life, a no account gigolo who gives himself a title and the airs that go with it. Rudy's the boy toy of Kathleen Kirkham second and trophy wife of Edward Jobson who Rudy is blackmailing.

Rudy's blackmail price; Jobson's daughter in wedlock Vera Sisson a rather non-descript young beauty with no personality whose heart belongs with earnest and dull Frank Newburg. Honestly I can't believe she wouldn't have gone whole hog for Rudy next to the drip Newburg was.

She does marry Rudy, but she won't give in to him. Hence the title The Married Virgin. Oh you poor child.

Valentino's presence next to these other nondescripts stands out so glaringly it's frightening. Although he might have been stuck in these exotic villain roles his whole life had his career not taken the turn it did.

The film is eminently forgettable other than for Rudolph Valentino.

A typical pre-twenties silent melodrama centered around a main character who must sacrifice her own happiness for Duty. Here we have Mary (Vera Sisson), an ingénue who, to save her father from disgrace, gives up the man she loves to marry a blackmailing gigolo, Count Roberto (Rudolph Valentino, playing a more developed version of the "cabaret parasite" from "The Eyes of Youth"). As often happens with this sort of movie, the wicked supporting characters of the gigolo and the sly, sexy stepmother (Kathleen Kirkham)—with whom he is in cahoots and having an affair—are far more interesting than the virtuous leads. Perhaps Lillian Gish could have made prissy Mary's dilemma affecting , but as played by Sisson she comes off as a gormless twit who cannot even wade into ankle deep seawater to retrieve a rambunctious toddler. As the teaser title implies, the marriage between the gigolo and the prig stays unconsummated, everything leading up to the moment when a frustrated Roberto breaks down Mary's bedroom door (surely what the original audience went in hopes of seeing rather than Mary's noble sacrifices). She doesn't seem worth the effort, but this scene is excitingly filmed and is an interesting precursor to a similar event in "The Son of the Sheik."

Valentino and Kirhham make this film worthwhile (there's a real spark between them), but try to find the restored DVD version, rather than sloppily made video production.

This is a really creaky film that will be of interest only to hardcore Rudolph Valentino fans. The plotline is so full of inconsistencies that keeping track of them ceases to amuse after a while. Valentino is the only point of interest in an this primitive film with a maddeningly inconsistent plot. The irony of Valentino's casting in this film as a man who never gets to consummate his marriage with his virgin wife is heavy in view of his unconsummated marriage to Jean Acker in real life.

I saw this on a DVD that was part of a collection of Valentino films. Valentino does not appear for the first ten minutes, so I jumped to the conclusion that he played a bit part and the video makers were just adding it as fuller. When Valentino did come on, I found that I was wrong. He does have a substantial part and gives a very strong performance.

One thing that is really weird about the film is that Kathleen Kirkham plays the mother-in-law to Vera Sisson. Yet Kathleen was 23 years old and Sisson was 27 years old when the film was made. Kathleen is quite good in the movie. She shows a great deal of passion for Valentino.

The film is nicely shot and edited with a good and effective use of close-ups to emphasize details. Especially noteworthy is a flashback within a flashback, something I have rarely seen in a film before. Kathleen tells Valentino about a time when she overhead a blackmailer talking to her husband. We flashback to the scene with the blackmailer. The blackmailer tells the husband (Edward Jobson) that he saw the husband murder a man. We then flashback to the murder of the man. We then return to the blackmailer and the husband, followed by a return to the present time and the wife talking to Valentino. It reminded me of the nesting structure of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein." Nearly every scene reveals great details about the time period, the cars, the mansion with the diverging staircase, a game of tennis with small rackets, even the clothes worn to the beach are fascinating to watch and capture the time period wonderfully. It gives us a nice idea how the upper class lived at this time.

The plot is not outstanding, but I think it represents a well done period melodrama involving a European Count who ruins a rich man by first seducing his young wife, then blackmailing him and finally forcing his daughter into marriage. The Count proves that he is a gentleman after all by not forcing his new bride to have sex with him, but saying that he will wait until she wants to. Thus she remains a "married virgin".

If it did not contain Valentino, the film would be merely interesting, but Valentino's assured and well acted performance makes it quite enjoyable.