The Sheik, or Stockholm Syndrome: The Movie

It was inevitable, but I finally found the first truly unsavory film of the 1920s. How this film managed to garner such praise, especially to this day, is beyond comprehension for me. Certainly Rudolph Valentino was a star at the time, so it makes sense why it was such a box office hit – especially since The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, a far superior film – was actually the highest grossing film of 1921, the same year. However, despite how fantastic his performance actually was in The Four Horsemen, he actually manages to teeter on something quite terrible and blatantly false this time around. Put on top of that the overwhelming connotations of racism, sexism, and general distastefulness that mars what could have been a decent film at its core, this film just did not sit with me well.

To continue with the topic of the acting, despite Valentino’s valiant turn in The Four Horsemen where he showed range, depth, and equal doses of charm and empathy creating a magnificent protagonist, he somehow forgets all of that and goes for the campy, false, and an overwhelming amount of “I’ll make my eyes big so it seems like I’m evil” (I mean... just look at that picture below) that would’ve possibly worked in a horror film, but is completely out of touch with the story being told in this film. I’m hoping that Horsemen wasn’t a fluke and in fact he can do a pretty great job outside of this film. And perhaps that’s true considering so many people have actually praised his performance here – which I can’t possibly understand. On the other hand, despite a mostly wasted cast, there are two incredibly bright spots.

Agnes Ayres perfectly captures the soul of the film, and whether intentionally or unintentionally, capturing the essence of Stockholm syndrome as well. She already impressed in her limited time in The Affairs of Anatol from the same year, but here she gets a chance to truly excel and show her talents across a wider range. The true MVP for me was actually Adolphe Menjou (pictured below) as the only semi-reasonable character in the entire film. Despite not mentioning it in my review for The Three Musketeers, he was actually the stand-out there for me as well, playing a believably domineering and paranoid King Louis XIII. Here, he tones everything down completely yet still maintaining a stern sense of authority but also authenticity. Never for a moment do I question his title as a doctor or author of passion, but neither his friendship to Valentino’s Ahmed nor love for Ayres’ Diana as well. In fact, if not for Menjou’s entrance in the second half of the film, my entire rating of the film would be sufficiently lower. He brings a likability and relatability that was certainly missing for the entirety of the film and brings a sense of validity to the story.

Unfortunately, it isn’t simply Valentino’s off-the-wall performance that hinders the film; in fact, I could’ve lived with the poor lead performance and still granted the film an above-average rating had it not been for the, you know, entire film itself. Firstly, let’s briefly acknowledge the sexist and racist implications. Essentially, Ayres’ character, Diana, is a free bird and does not want to be caged by matrimony; yet as the story develops, she begins to get attached to Sheik Ahmed (Valentino) due to her literal captivity. Which leads into the racist insinuation (and perhaps this is something that has genuinely happened before, I’m not well-versed on the subject), in which the Sheik decides to capture a pretty white woman and make her his own – essentially kidnapping and raping her. So for the first third of the film, if I were to just be born and brought into this world, I would have learned that Arabs are rapists and women aren’t allowed to be think for themselves. Great.

But that’s not all. Now that she has been kidnapped and her senses numbed by her time in captivity and general feelings of helplessness, the film decides Ahmed is actually the hero of the story! Yes, that’s right. At first I thought, okay, her Stockholm syndrome has kicked in and she thinks she’s fallen in love with this guy when in truth he’s evil. But an outside force will help bring her mental state back and save her from this terrible curse. Enter Menjou’s character, a doctor from Paris who attempts to shirk the Sheik of his ways, but that only lasts about five minutes before it turns out he has a heart and they both love each other so.

Yeah.

I don’t get it either.

So it begs the question: Why is this film so loved? I never felt for one second that the Sheik was a hero, and the only potential saving grace turns out to give up on his quest to help the free bird suddenly in distress. The film offers a “happy” ending, but the entire time I kept wanting to yell at the screen ”HELP THIS WOMAN!”

Perhaps I’m wrong, though. Maybe the film is actually a twisted love story of the likes of 50 Shades of Grey or some other form of Stockholm syndrome/ captivity/ chains-and-whips-excite-me-type of love story. Maybe Valentino was actually playing this hero quite earnestly and I should have felt bad for him the entire time. I mean, the film did offer a lovely conclusion as to why he is how he is, which makes all of his actions completely justifiable. Maybe the real antagonist all along was the bandit at the end who attempted to steal Diana away, you know, the same exact way that Sheik Ahmed did in the beginning of the film. After all, he gave profoundly solid reasoning as to why he made such a life-changing decision in the first place: ”When an Arab sees a woman he wants, he takes her.”

Oh. Maybe not.


3.5/10

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse – Analyzing 1921’s Most Popular Film

Before Rudolph Valentino rose to stardom in the 1920s, he starred in the lengthy epic on the consequences of war and hatred, Rex Ingram’s The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The film, having very little to do with the actual story of the titular horsemen, plays out similarly to D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation in pitting fictional family against family on opposite sides of a real-life war. In this case, the war happens to be the first World War.

Valentino stars as Julio Desnoyers, the reckless grandson of a wealthy Argentinian cattle herder who – despite promising to leave everything to Julio after his death – winds up actually leaving him only half; the other half is given to his German uncle and his three sons who decide to leave home for Germany and continue their education. Julio, on the other hand, decides to go to art school and tango clubs, reveling in days gone by. It’s not until he meets the lovely, but married, Marguerite Laurier (played soulfully by Alice Terry) that he begins to change his ways. To make matters worse, World War I approaches and disrupts his life once more.

Without giving a whole lot away, it’s easy to see why the film managed to be the highest-grossing film of 1921 – even over the likes of Charles Chaplin’s The Kid. Back in the golden days of cinema, audiences yearned for epic stories that swept across time and space – something more than what stood outside their front door. Just as Griffith had excelled at for the past decade, particularly his primary Birth of a Nation, director Rex Ingram and the wonderful screenwriter June Mathis worked together to offer an epic tale of love and hate that not only tied in with the Biblical parable of the Horsemen, but related it to the lives of those affected by World War I.

Perhaps its success was due to World War I being such a fresh aspect of the lives of those in 1921, but nonetheless the film offers plenty in the way of thrills, heart, and passion. From Valentino and Terry’s engaging romance to the destructive and horrific war-time scenarios of which Desnoyers’ father is unfortunately thrown in the midst, the film sets out to do what Birth of a Nation did nearly half a decade earlier, but with much more passion and cutting down the racism (and time, thank God).

Even more brilliant are the performances that layer such a wonderfully knit story. It’s easy to see why Rudolph Valentino (pictured above and to the far right) rose to stardom following this and his other 1921 film, The Sheik’s success. He has charisma for days, especially evident in the first half of the film during his playboy days, but he still has the dramatic chops that perfectly capture the maturity of his character. By his side for most of the latter half is Alice Terry (also above) who shares wonderful chemistry with Valentino, but has plenty of individual moments to shine. She perfectly expresses her character’s internal conflicts while simultaneously making it easy to see why Desnoyers would fall for her in the first place. Outside of those two, Josef Swickard perfectly encapsulates the prideful patriarch (Desnoyers’ father) yet still owns the key dramatic scenes with gusto, and Nigel De Brulier (pictured to the right in the middle, who also did a knock-out turn as the villain in The Three Musketeers the same year) proves quite capable of a noble character as well, playing “the man upstairs” (heh, get it?) from Desnoyers who may or may not be Christ incarnate.

Though the performances make the film feel all the more believable and heartfelt, the film is still Rex Ingram and June Mathis’ all the way. Though the film may seem melodramatic to some – as was custom of the day – Ingram’s fantastic metaphoric use of imagery is startling. In particular, the scene involving the “man upstairs” discussing the Horsemen is a fine piece of filmmaking. Perfectly captures the tone of the beginning of war without ever showing scenes of war whatsoever. But Mathis’ writing, just as she did with the tonally different The Saphead a year before, is what gives the film its wonderful pacing and perfect development. You believe these characters to be real people, that their actions are justified, and that each consequence or reward is earned. It’s a beautiful and epic tale of love and hate, as well as the consequences of war (something All Quiet on the Western Front would make all the more real almost a decade later) that might have set a foundation for many epic tales to come, and showed that Griffith was not the only one who saw something in the idea of cinema’s power – the box office certainly being proof of that. Perhaps filmmakers of today who yearn to weave such intricate epic stories ought to learn a thing or two from the ones who started it all.


8.5/10