The Shriek of Araby

THE SHRIEK OF ARABY is 75% Valentino/desert romance parody and 25% surreal gag machine. Ben turpin sends up THE SHEIK, donning desert robes, aggressively wooing Kathryn McGuire (best remembered as one of Buster Keaton's leading ladies), and fighting off rivals. There are fourth wall jokes, mistaken identities, 20s slang in inappropriate situations, the works. The weirdest part of all takes place at the end, where Turpin's rival the Bandit Kign straight up uses a Bond villain method of trying to kill Mcguire. It's an odd, odd movie, throwing jokes every second and seeing what sticks. A lot of it doesn't and the film goes on too long for its own good, but it's worth a look, particularly if you're like me and the Sheik movies are guilty pleasures.

Once I heard someone refer to Ben Turpin as a man who wasn't all that funny but was put in funny situations. Well, this seems right on point with "The Shriek of Araby"...a film with some funny moments though Turpin himself didn't have the same charisma and charm as some of his silent contemporaries. Still, while it's not perfect, the film is entertaining.

When the story begins, Ben is working for a theater advertising the newest hit movie, "The Shiek" with Rudolph Valentino. However, after dressing up in Arabian clothing, Ben falls asleep and dreams he's having some adventures. What all these adventures are, you can see for yourself.

The budget for this film must have been considerable for a comedy in 1923. While it must have been filmed in California, the desert sets and costumes were very nice and Mack Sennett probably borrowed them from some desert drama. Well worth seeing, though the run time for the film was considerably shorter than 50 minutes. Exact run times are hard to determine, as silent films were made at varying speeds (usually about 16-22 frames per secons) but this wouldn't account for over 10 minutes difference. Perhaps IMDB is wrong or a scene or two were shaved off the version I found.

Ben Turpin is yet another silent comedian who has been all but forgotten. This is a great shame since he was also one of the funniest. The closest modern equivalent I can think of is Mr. Bean.

This movie is a spoof of Valentino's phenomenally popular movie "The Sheik" and it does a very good job at it. Some of the effects and stunts are impressive. The scenes of Turpin being chased by a lion and riding an ostrich were especially good.

I highly recommend anyone seeing this film to view the Sheik first since you will get many more of the jokes that way. In particular, the climax of the Sheik is thoroughly lampooned.

I don't want to give away the punchlines to many of the gags so I will just stop here by saying that this is a hysterical spoof that deserves more recognition.

Any film that contains the line "This freak was annoying an ostrich" cannot be all bad. The ostrich from the wonderful ballet Les Mariés du Tour Eiffel (1921) to the late films of Buñuel has a very special association with surrealism and this is quite Turpin's most surreal film and perhaps his best. It is simply the fantasies of a cinema bill poster and general handyman who gets promoted (for reasons of economy) to being the model for the poster, following very broadly the story of The Sheik (1921) with a nod and a wink also towards The Arabian Nights (lavishly filmed in France also in 1921) As for Ben. like Rudy he isn't....

The director is not known (Richard Jones was production manager/supervisor for the Sennett films) but may possibly be Sennett himself who is credited with writing the film.