Valentino

Filled with wonderful moments, Valentino, ultimately collapses under the weight of its overblown and raucous fairground antics. It must have been an amazing coup to get Rudolf Nureyev to play the infamous Rudolph Valentino but there is just too much going on and some scenes going on for too long. The costumes, by the director's then wife Shirley are amazing but really only help to feed in to the overall campiness of the proceedings. I can imagine Ken bouncing about encouraging everyone to give it their all and this certainly seems to have born fruit with Peter Vaughan's ecstatic performance towards the end but it also means that poor little Felicity Kendal, always the most measured of actresses, actually overacts here. A camp extravaganza that I'm sure many can enjoy but I would have preferred just a little more insight. The Fatty Arbuckle portrayal is unforgivable, never mind that of Valentino himself.

First saw it on HBO (many times) about 1980. Just love the Ken Russell 'exaggerated' feel and look. Made me look into the life of Valentino, where I was disappointed to find that Ken Russell had really 'exaggerated' Rudy's life. I didn't see it again until 1998 on a trip to Canada, in a somewhat edited version. I just watched it on the True Stories channel, I fell in love with it again. Ken Russell's version of the cause of Rudy's death is much more interesting than the actual cause of Valentino's death. I taped it and expect to watch it a few more times.

Ken Russell could certainly do a period picture. Detail, feel, mood, elegance and style, you name it. In his depiction of 1920's Italian heart throb Hollywood star, Rudolph Valentino, all these key aspects are in place.

Lacking some of the more outrageous flourishes of sexual and violent depravities that marred/enabled (depending on your point of view) many other of Russell's flicks, this is still certificate 18 with some moderately explicit nudity.

The locations are inspired (the desert filming scene is superbly done), such as the Russell Coates Museum in Bournemouth and the dancing and set pieces dazzling and amazing. However, somehow the film doesn't gel as a whole and working out why is near impossible.

Some say that the casting of the Russian ballet icon, Rudolf Nureyev as Valentino to be a major fault, but I disagree. Sure, he's stilted and with the wrong accent, but he absolutely looks the part and with that immensely athletic body of his, well....and the dancing is as you'd expect. As the dashing sheik in the desert, just mentioned, he looks uncannily like the real thing.

Maybe that the film covers a lot of ground and at a full 2 hours, there's a lot of visual information. Sometimes it feels that there isn't the narrative clarity to support all that and we don't always know what is going on. Or, at least I didn't.

The late, great Ken has produced a fine film but one that ultimately doesn't quite work.

Even if you know very little about Rudolph Valentino (like myself), it's obvious after just a couple of minutes that this "autobiography" doesn't have to be taken all too seriously. The dark humor and colorful, operatic way in which director Ken Russell tells his story, make this film interesting to watch, although some parts were just a little over the top to my taste (like Leslie Caron's excessive entrance at the funeral home, the cult of fans gathering outside Valentino's mansion and the scene in which Valentino and his co-star "practise" their love scene).

Although the choice of Rudolf Nureyev to play Valentino was a gamble, I think he is surprisingly well-cast in the title role. In my opinion, the whole essence of the movie was to make it look like a silent movie, whether in grotesqueness of the scenes or in the overly dramatic dialogs. In that light, Nureyev's performance should not be judged as "bad acting". His exaggerated accent and equally strong body language are part of his performance, which is supported by the fact that Nureyev in real life didn't had that much of an Russian accent (anymore) by 1977. Whether his acting style - or for that matter the style of the entire movie - appeals to you, is therefore merely an issue of personal taste than of professional capability of the filmmakers.

As a homosexual (or more accurately bisexual), Nureyev certainly would have related to the hate directed at Valentino and as a world-famous ballet dancer, he would also have been able to relate to Valentino's fame, outrageous lifestyle, the parasitic way in which some people surrounded him and the pressure of being an idol. He created an impression that I found believable and endearing.

Someone in another IMDb user review stated that Nureyev is "not handsome", "short" and "not muscular at all". Of course personal opinions about beauty may differ, but REALLY... if Nureyev is not considered the embodiment of physical perfection, than who is? This man has been a sex icon from the moment he became famous and was adored worldwide not only for his wonderful dancing, but also for his beautiful sculpted body and astonishing charisma. He definitely shows these trademarks in this movie. All his love scenes (even with Michelle Phillips, who he apparently disliked) ooze an erotic feeling. But above all, he shows that his dancing skills exceed the classical ballet. The most captivating moments for anyone with a warm place in his heart for dance, are certainly the spectacular ballroom scenes: from the passionate tango with Vaslav Nijinsky (one of several comical references to ballet) to the stunning duets with his two on-screen wives.

There are chances that you have mixed feelings after having watched this film, but in my case this is mainly due to the script. The main characters stay a little flat in the narrative and the big leaps in between the events leading to Valentino's death sometimes make it hard for people not familiar with the historical background of Valentino to truly understand the implications of the story. The "why" behind the larger-than-life popularity of this iconic cinematic person thus stays a little obscure. However, the sadness over a talented life cut off too early, is a similarity between Valentino and Nureyev (who died in 1993 as a result of AIDS) which gives the entire film a melancholic shine.

As in all of his biography films Ken Russell takes no prisoners. A series of warped biographies on composers (Mahler, Tchaikovsky, List)incensed more than entertained audiences and critics. Laced with dark humor, vibrant costuming and Russell's sardonic use of the composers works in conjunction with his colorful and outlandish compositions the films were visual feasts that bordered on character assassination.

In Valentino, Russell comes to America to offer his take on silent Hollywood and its biggest star of the era, Rudolph Valentino. Russell is relentless in his depiction of the exploitative and greedy nature of producers who in the opening scene stand over Valentino's body lamenting financial loss. Russell also works over newspaper reporters, actresses, Valentino's ex-wives and a comedian known as Fatty (Arbuckle?). Dancer, Rudolph Nureyev is no actor but as Valentino his poorly pronounced flatly emoted English fits and contributes to his sympathetic character.

As in all Russell films there are scenes that are lush and grandly staged (ably assisted by ex-wife, Shirley Russell's original and over the top costuming) such as Leslie Caron's entrance at the funeral home, the fight sequence where ball room dancing takes place in between rounds, the producer with the pet gorilla in his living room, and a cult fan gathering outside Valentino's mansion.

This film quickly sank from sight when it was released and thirty years later consensus remains the same. I personally believe however that Valentino is a sharply drawn dark humored satire that spits cynicism at two institutions (Hollywood and the media) that it depended heavily on for its success. Valentino succeeds on every level and that was probably its problem.