The Son of the Sheik

This was Valentino's last film, and he is excellent in it, but it is far from being his best film (as many critics claim). Certainly "Camille", "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse", "The Eagle" and "The Conquering Power" are much better films. This was designed as a rollicking and sexy adventure film, with large doses of cheap slapstick humour, and on that level succeeds admirably. That famous scene where Valentino ravishes Vilma Banky is extraordinary, and Valentino shows real talent in portraying both the son and the father (he is almost unrecognisable in the latter role). Great split screen work allows the two Valentinos to inter-relate well too.

The film makes you wonder what this talented and beautiful man may have achieved had he lived. Would he have made it in talkies? It's hard to believe such charisma would ever fail.

THE SON OF THE SHEIK (United Artists, 1926), directed by George Fitzmaurice, reunites the leading players of Rudolph Valentino and Vilma Banky, most recent stars of THE EAGLE (UA, 1925), in what has become one of the most popular films from the silent era, mainly because of it not only being Valentino's final screen performance, but is where the legend of Valentino began. A sequel to his earlier success, THE SHIEK (Paramount, 1921), Valentino's career up to this point consisted of hit and miss stories over the next few years until THE EAGLE not only brought renewed interest in Valentino, but reassured it with THE SON OF THE SHEIK. Since sequels were a rarity during that time, Valentino, as did Douglas Fairbanks with the sequel to his immensely popular, THE MARK OF ZORRO (1920), DON Q, SON OF ZORRO (1925), Valentino reprises his original role as well as portraying his own son, Ahmed. Agnes Ayres, Valentino's leading lady in THE SHEIK, is offered special billing in the opening credits, who also re-enacts her original role as Diana, this time as wife and mother.

The story begins with the opening titles that read as to the location, "Not East of Suez, but South of Algiers." Yasmin (Vilma Banky) is the daughter of Andre(George Fawcett), a renegade Frenchman and leader of a group of thieves. She supports them through her dancing publicly. In the marketplace (as recalled by Yasmin via flashback), she meets Ahmed (Valentino), a handsome young sheik, and the two fall in love. After meeting with Yasmin secretly one night, Ahmed is captured by her father's renegades and held captive in a building where he hangs by his tied-up wrists placed on the window bars, and subject to whip torture for not revealing the name of his father and other information. After being freed by his men, Ahmed, believing Yasmin as his betrayer, abducts the girl and subjects her to his methods of torture, with one scene looking at Yasmin with vengeance in his eyes, and (off camera) putting her through the process of rape. It would be his father, Ahmed Ben Hassan (Valentino) who orders him to release the girl. After learning the truth from Ramadan (Karl Dane), Ahmed tries to win back Yasmin, who has returned to the dance hall, and now wants nothing to ever do with him.

In many ways, a much more interesting story than its predecessor, and brief to the point at 68 minutes. Aside from the fine chemistry between Valentino and Banky, the supporting villain as played by Montagu Love, along with sandy sets with production designs by William Cameron Menzies, THE SON OF THE SHEIK is Valentino's film from start to finish. And with this film as well does the Vilma Banky name remain legendary. But who knows how far Valentino's screen career would have gone had it not been for his untimely death at the age of 31 shortly following the film's release.

THE SON OF THE SHEIK did enjoy frequent theatrical revivals for a number of years, usually on a double bill with THE EAGLE, as well as television showings during the early to mid 1960s. It became one of the selected films shown during the summer months on weekly public television series, "The Silent Years" (1971), hosted by Orson Welles (New York City area, WNET, Channel 13, on July 13, 1971). In spite of its popularity and the legend behind it, what's interesting to note is that while the twelve movies featured on "The Silent Years" did enjoy rebroadcasts up till the mid 1970s, THE SON OF THE SHEIK wasn't included in the reruns. Some years would pass before its availability onto video cassette and/or DVD (Blackhawk and/or Kino), the best being from the Killiam Collection accompanied by a theater organ score by Jack Ward. THE SON OF THE SHEIK, which played as part of its silent film collection on American Movie Classics around 1996, can be currently seen and studied whenever played on Turner Classic Movies. For those interested in the legend of Valentino, THE SON OF THE SHEIK, which provides two Valentinos for the price of one, as well as being an important part in cinema history, is worthy screen entertainment. (***)

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.

I recently saw the Son of the Sheik at an old movie house in Los Angeles. It was complete with the Wurlitzer theater pipe organ -- live accompaniment for this rare gem! I was in awe at how sophisticated and enchanting this movie was. I remarked to my husband that it reminded me of one of my trashy love novels. It was so perfect. I remember reading somewhere that Rudolph Valentino's fame came from the fact that he was so dark and handsome and muscular as opposed to the little pasty boys that had existed before him in the cinema. The scene where he exacts his revenge on Yasmin and ravishes her....was wonderful. His dark eyes as he looked at her in the close-ups.......ahhhhh. This movie truly was a treat. The desert scenes, the lush scenery and sumptuous costumes create a wonderful lavish movie. Valentino was taken from the cinema world far too early....but at least we have these lavish movies to remember him by.

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.