The Son of the Sheik

This was a truly amazing film. TCM just played this along with four others for Valentine's Day. While "Camille" (What was with Nazimova's hair?), "The Eagle", "Four Horsemen", and "Conquering Power" were all good, "Son of the Sheik" was the best for Valentine's Day. The pure raw sensuality that Valentino portrayed was exciting. I've only been into the silent films for the past fours years, and as I'm only 22, one would think I have no appreciation for "old" people. However, this film had me online for a few hours finding pictures of Valentino in this film. HUBBA HUBBA!!! It really is a shame he didn't live longer. He very well could have made talkies, as the song I heard him record sounded lovely.

Just to answer ClaudeCat's question, "It really made me wonder about the time period: did women of the 20's enjoy seeing rape fantasies onscreen, because of different attitudes about women and sex? Or was this something filmmakers of

the period imagined women wanted to see, and the fans put up with it in order to enjoy the sight of Rudolph's face?" the film was quite remarkably based on a

book written by a WOMAN and the script also was written by a WOMAN. This is

something I found very shocking when I first studied this film in film class. The rape in this film in many ways functions the same way the rape scene did in

"Gone With the Wind." In fact, in both cases, many people don't even call them rape scenes, even though in both a woman is taken against her will. Many

theories about this revolve around the fact that Valentino was this exotic, sexy, foreigner that women secretly wanted to kidnap them from their dull,

homebound lives and their conservative husbands. This is in a way what

psychologists call a "rape fantasy." Whereas a real rape, the woman has no

control, in a fantasy, even though she imagines being taken by force, she is

really the one making the rules, because she is imagining it, much as the female writer of "The Son of the Sheik" may have her character be ravished, but is really the one in control of what Valentino does. One important thing to note is a rape fantasy doesn't mean the woman actually wants to be raped in real life.

It is sadly appropriate that in his final movie Valentino plays a stronger and more nuanced version of his signature character: Sheik Ahmed, the impassioned lover who is initially impetuous, self centred and brutal, but who gradually matures into an admirable man. In this case, the male lead is actually the son of the original sheik, but Valentino also plays, just as engagingly, the father who is now middle aged, wiser (this is essentially the adviser role Adolphe Menjou had in the original movie) but still commanding and able to wield a sword.

As wasn't the case with "The Sheik," the script acknowledges the luridness of its material in a tongue-in-cheek manner (one memorable title card reads "The night was young at the Café Maure. Not a knife had been thrown—so far") while not mocking it to the point at the movie would lapse into parody and lose its pulpy charms. For example, in one of the most famous scenes the sheik tries to put his rebellious son in his place by bending an iron bar; the son replies by straightening it out. This is deliberate camp that nonetheless clearly establishes the strength of character and body of both men. The film also departs from the original in the frank comic relief it provides in the form of a nasty but amusing little mountebank who seems to get on the good and bad characters' nerves in equal measure.

For those expecting titillation, the film does not disappoint. Valentino and the leading lady Vilma Banky, were involved in real life and it shows in the spooning scenes. The film also has plenty of the rougher, even perverse sexuality that in one form or another is present in nearly all of Valentino's films (even "The Eagle," the closest to a family picture Valentino ever made, has that brief scene with the hero flourishing a whip before the frightened female lead). Here we have Ahmed's rape of Yasmine which is far racier than the merely hinted at ravishment of Lady Diana in "The Sheik," and a striking (and homoerotic) sequence in which Valentino, tied up, his tailored white shirt torn to shreds, is subject to a prolonged whipping by a gang of thieves, the most sadistic of whom addresses him as "My young lion."

To me, this is the quintessential Valentino film and the one to show people who are curious about this actor's enduring mystique.

If anyone has heard about Valentino and wants to see what all the fuss was about, The Son of the Sheik is an excellent way to do so. Here he is five years past the overacting he exhibited in parts of the earlier installment. To top it off, he plays dual roles: the son and the father. And he does both admirably. The shots of the two characters in the same frame - touching each other, no less - are flawlessly executed. Generally, this is standard melodrama culminating in physical battles between the good guys and the bad guys and a final chase. Along the way we get a lot of exotic set pieces, lavishly furnished desert tents, horses racing across the dunes, smoky cafes in which dancing girls wriggle for tossed coins and a grand palace with spacious rooms and shiny floors. The intimate scenes between Valentino and the beauteous Vilma Banky are more sensuous than those of the previous film. Clips from these scenes will be familiar to anyone who has ever seen Valentino references in documentaries. Agnes Ayres reprises her role from The Sheik as Diana Mayo, now the wife of the older sheik and mother of his son, and she appears to have aged 20 years but is no less attractive. For Valentino, Banky and Ayres alone this is a treat.

In the south of Algiers, in a camp of outcasts, the Frenchman André (George Fawcett) leads a troupe of mountebanks and thieves. His daughter Yasmin (Vilma Banky) is the dancer of the group and is promised to the cutthroat Moor Ghobah (Montague Love). However, Yasmin meets Ahmed (Rudolph Valentino), who is the Sheik's son but she does not know, and they fall in love for each other. When the young couple secretly dates in the ruins of Touggourt, where Yasmin dances, the criminals attack Ahmed, beat up and capture him, expecting to ask for a ransom. Ghobah poisons Ahmed, telling that Yasmin is a bait to lure victims for them. Ahmed escapes, and he abducts Yasmin and despises her. When he knows the truth, he fights against the gang of criminals trying to rescue her from Ghobah.

"The Son of the Sheik" is the last movie of Rudolph Valentino and a delightful adventure with romance, action and drama. The cinematography is impressive, and I particularly liked very much the sequences when Vilma Banky dances in Touggourt beginning with a close and opening to the whole place, and when Ahmed chases Ghobah and Yasmin in the desert. Considering the equipment available in 1926, big, heavy and with serious limitations, it is amazing how these scenes were shot. Rudolph Valentino is fantastic in the role of the son of the Sheik, and his agility recalled me Errol Flynn, when he fights in the bar of Touggourt, jumping on the chandelier. The beautiful Vilma Banky dances magnificently well, shows a great chemistry with Rudolph Valentino and has also a great interpretation. The intense music of Arthur Gutmann gives a perfect dynamic to this wonderful underrated film. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): "O Filho do Sheik" ("The Son of the Sheik")