Good Night Valentino

Saw this film at the Valentino tribute at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. It's an essay that was written about the writers last encounter with Valentino. The actor and director, writer who wrote this piece was there and introduced the film. Valentino at the time was upset with a writer who had said he was a powder puff, homosexual. This writer met with him days before his death and Valentino told him it was true. Great little film.

This was included on the disk "Shorts: Volume 2"--a rather dull collection of short films. Shorts are among my favorite style of films but somehow the people assembling this second collection had a hard time finding quality content--and it wasn't nearly as good as the first volume or other shorts collections. This particular short film is one of the better ones in it.

Unlike most reviewers, I am very acquainted with the films of Rudolph Valentino and know exactly who H. L. Mencken was, so I understood the context for the film. Apparently, just before his death, the two men met at Valentino's insistence. Valentino had been angry about some newspaper reports that depicted him as being less than manly--though he was also considered by most women to be the most desirable man in the world. Their conversation about life, fame, masculinity and newspapers is the subject of this short.

Even though I am aware of the characters, I still didn't particularly care about the film one way or the other. The lead didn't look that much like Valentino to me and the whole thing was so cerebral and underplayed that it didn't spark my interest. Perhaps you'll enjoy it more.

Much of the narrative here is quoted from Mencken's essay (a Baltimore Sun column) that appeared a few days after Valentino died. Mencken wrote that he was puzzled by Valentino's request to meet with him; the dinner was arranged by an actress (Aileen Pringle, who had actually appeared in a couple of early Valentino movies) of the men's mutual acquaintance. The maid here is an artistic addition, not mentioned in the essay, & Ms. Pringle was not cited by name.

This short gives a fair account of their encounter, & we are watching two very fine actors at work. (John Rothman, who appears as Mencken, is in fact from Baltimore.) Mencken described the evening as infernally hot & Valentino as essentially an honorable man & even his clothes as not those "of his horrible trade." I'd always thought that Mencken's description of the dinner would make an excellent albeit brief stage play & found this short film only recently.

First, this is a meeting between two 20's personalities, not 30's. Secondly, Valentino would have never have admitted he was a homosexual, because that was the very thing he went to see Mencken about, and, contrary to what people may want to believe, he was heterosexual. The rumor about him being homosexual came from a film, and the costume he wore, in which he was called a pink powder puff. Valentino, being from Italy, had that machismo, and was deeply offended and crushed by the newspaper article that described him as less than a he-man, although, he wasn't much of a he-man. More Importantly, American men were threatened by Valentino because American woman were in love with his image, and men were jealous. Douglas Fairbanks was very rude to Valentino: couldn't stand him. There was a lot of rivalry. Valentino himself was awed by his power, liked it, but was ambivalent about it. I don't think Mencken was exactly correct.

There are a couple of reviews that are noteworthy about this film, but please avoid these two, obviously written by two people who didn't understand what they were watching.

In this intriguing short we see a meeting between the editorialist and wit, H.L Mencken, and the silent film star Rudolph Valentino.

While the voice-over is interesting, the chemistry between the two men is riveting. Mencken may be heterosexual but is still affected by the presence of that animal magnetism that made Valentino the star that he was.

Perhaps I was projecting, but it felt that the sexual tension was thick enough to cut with a knife.

Even without that aspect, this short is well worth the viewing for its evocation of a period but with that element it's memorable.