Simply Perfect

Fresh and Exciting

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

This film tells the story of a sheik (Rudolph Valentino) who captures an English woman (Agnes Ayres) and takes her to her strongholds in the Sahara desert. Initially frightened by the situation, the girl ends up falling in love with her captor. After being kidnapped again - now by a desert villain - all she wants is to be rescued by the sheik galan. Despite the dubious moral present in this film, there is no denying that director George Melford knew how to work with some quality the adventure spirit of the film. Even with some monotonous parts, it is generally a pleasant experience in terms of rhythm, especially in some scenes that explore the desert and focus on action. A reasonably satisfying film. One of the 1921 films that would bring Rudolph Valentino to stardom.

Made three years after the end of WW1, the one thing which stood out for me in this film was the blatant unapologetic racism. When Lady Diana thought that the man who kidnapped and carried her off to his desert tent was an Arab, she was ashamed and humiliated to be seen with him, despite his constant references to his life and education in Paris, but when it was revealed he was the orphaned child of an English mother and Spanish father and had been adopted by the old sheik after his parents had been found dying in the desert, then it was acceptable to fall in love and marry him. In one scene his writer friend from Paris admonished him for the embarrassment and humiliation he had inflicted upon a white woman by flaunting her in front of a man of her own race. That aside, this was quite fun to watch and the settings of old Algiers and the luxurious desert tent were excellent. I particularly liked the stylish title cards. Perhaps it was the cameras they were working with in 1921, but I did feel they could have used more close ups rather than the long shots. When they made the sequel in 1925, the difference was noticeable, lots of close ups and different angles. One scene in the desert appeared to be missing. Diana was rescued from the bandits without us ever seeing how or why, but considering the volatility of the old nitrate films and that many we see today are remnants found in obscure collections and pieced together bit by bit, that can be forgiven.

A charming Arabian sheik (Rudolph Valentino) becomes infatuated with an adventurous, modern-thinking Englishwoman and abducts her to his home in the Saharan desert.On the one hand, this film is interesting in its depiction of "Arabia" because it was probably one of the first, and makes it a rather romantic setting. Today, we tend to think only of war and strife.But also, this is no all-happy romance. In the novel, Sheik Ahmed sexually assaults Lady Diana; in the film, the assault is only suggested as a curtain closes on Sheik Ahmed and Lady Diana before there is any physical contact between the two, but this is still questionable subject matter for the time. George Melford said, "We have handled the frank scenes in 'The Sheik' so delicately that I think the censors will be the only disappointed reviewers." Today (2016), this film is probably the one that Rudolph Valentino is best known for, though more people probably know him for appearing in a lyric from "Manic Monday"!

For reasons difficult for mere man to diagnose, the sheik represented the ultimate in masculine appeal… Call it the mystery of the burning sands, the magic lure of the tropics, the titillating uncertainty of the unfamiliar, the reputed animal magnetism of the Arab aristocrat—these are mere words which leave the cult of this particular sheik unexplained… Give Valentino a burnoose, a bejeweled dagger and fancy belt, a pair of riding boots, a luxurious tent with intimations of a harem in the background and a well-cushioned couch in the foreground, and he became irresistible… To be borne in his arm on a white Arabian stallion, struggling virtuously but not too violently, was apparently the goal of nearly every woman's ambition… Much of the action of "The Sheik" consisted of a menacing Valentino staring at a pleading Agnes Ayres while they warily circled each other in preparation for the clinch that was a long time coming