Valentino, Rudolph

The Sheik / The Son of the Sheik (Special Edition)

If you have the slightest interest in the phenomenon called Rudolph Valentino, this terrific disc is absolutely the place to start. The screen's great male sex god of the 1920s had a mammoth success with The Sheik, a slice of desert romance both exciting and completely absurd. Valentino plays a dashing "sheik of Araby" who rather forcefully romances an adventure-minded English lady (Agnes Ayres); if the story creaks with Victorian storytelling conventions, it also works. Five years later Valentino returned to the sands with his final film, The Son of the Sheik, playing both his original role and the sheik's impetuous boy. More madness here, and a wild saber duel on horseback at night reminds us they don't make movies like this any more. Valentino's faux-exotic allure may seem curious to modern viewers, but squint hard and you can imagine the frenzy caused by the sultry eyes and rapacious grin. --Robert Horton

The great silent screen lover Rudolph Valentino is captured in his most famous role in this special double feature. Women fainted in the aisles when "The Sheik" (1921, 86 min.) was released, as Lady Diana Mayo (Agnes Ayres) is carried into the desert by an Arab chieftain (Valentino) who takes one look at her and wants her, right then and there. Nobody had seen anything like Valentino's natural sex appeal on the screen before, and the sequel "The Son of the Sheik" (1926, 69 min.) was designed to revive Valentino's flagging career. In the sequel, Young Ahmed (Valentino) falls in love with Yasmin, a dancing girl (Vilma Banky), but he is captured and tortured by bandits. Believing Yasmin to be responsible, he escapes and plans his own form of revenge, although true love, of course, finally prevails. In New York for the premiere of "The Son of the Sheik," Valentino collapsed and died eight days later at the age of 31. The public hysteria surrounding his funeral is documented in the original Pathe newsreel which rounds out this extraordinary DVD.

Family Collection 250 Movie Pack

Cobra

The legendary silent screen lover Rudolph Valentino as a passionate Count. Beleaguered by women in his native land, a promiscuous Italian Count, Rodrigo Torriani (Valentino) escapes to New York to work for an elegant antiques dealer. The ambitious young man cannot suppress the Don Giovanni within himself and is soon embroiled in a new series of romantic entanglements--until his best friend's new wife captures him in her Cobra-like gaze. Now, he will sacrifice all for one woman.

Hollywood Classics 100 Movie Pack

Combining our popular Hollywood Legends and All Stars 50 Movie Packs, we're able to present an instant film library that captures the magic of the golden years of cinema! Never has one collection contained so many great classic features filled with a dazzling array of Hollywood actors. You get 100 full-length feature films on 25 entertainment packed double-sided DVDs.

The Valentino Collection (The Young Rajah / Stolen Moments / A Society Sensation / Moran of the Lady Letty)

As one of the most iconic personalities of the silent film era, Rudolph Valentino achieved an unprecedented level of fame, due in part to his exotic good looks and a magnetic personality that leapt from the screen. His undeniable cultural resonance, coupled with his untimely death in August of 1926, has made him a recognizable and still-relevant figure throughout the world. Flicker Alley s 2-Disc THE VALENTINO COLLECTION is the definitive DVD compilation featuring digital reconstructions and home video premieres of four previously unavailable Valentino films a new digital reconstruction of two lost films: The Young Rajah (1922) and Stolen Moments (1920), featuring new musical scores by Jon Mirsalis, A Society Sensation (1918), featuring Bob Mitchell at the pipe organ, and Moran of the Lady Letty (1922), featuring a restoration of the film s original intertitle text and tinting and a new score by Robert Israel. The collection boasts an extensive assortment of bonus short films (with new musical scores), rare audio recordings, previously unpublished photos, promotional materials, production photos and other rare items detailing several aspects of Valentino s remarkable life and legacy, sure to fascinate film fans and scholars alike. DVD FEATURES: *All new, speed-corrected film transfers and new digitally recorded music for all featured films and silent shorts Five Vintage Bonus Films: Rare silent shorts featuring new music scores by Bob Mitchell at the pipe organ, including A Trip to Paramountown, Screen Snapshots, and Character Studies. In addition, two more sound films: Round About Hollywood, an early Cinecolor travelogue, and Rudolph Valentino, an early memorial tribute film Additional Rare Footage: Unique Valentino (and Valentino-related) film clips, including a newly-uncovered, original 35 mm tinted nitrate fragment from Stolen Moments Valentino In Memoriam: An exceptional collection of rare images and vintage audio recordings, including an exclusive audio interview with the original Lady in Black, Ditra Flame Valentino Forever: A new short film by author and historian Tracy Ryan Terhune documenting the Valentino memorial services and the history of the Lady in Black Valentino Landmarks: Explore significant locations of Valentino s life in Hollywood, featuring an interactive video tour of his Falcon Lair estate, slide shows of his Whitley Heights residence and personal belongings, and historic descriptions of the Formosa Apartments and Lasky Studios. A Friend Remembered: A fascinating collection of over 75 captioned behind the scenes and candid images (many never-before-published) photographed by Valentino s close friend, Paul Ivano Who's Who In Hollywood: Over 80 pages of biographical information and unique photographs of the major performers and technicians involved with the four featured VALENTINO COLLECTION films, as well as key persons in Valentino s life Virtual Scrapbooks: Over 175 historical documents from the four featured VALENTINO COLLECTION films including lobby cards, poster art, advertisements, production stills, and other surviving promotional materials Two Remarkable Slide Show Presentations: Valentino The Athlete and Valentino and His Beloved Pets feature two different sides of the Valentino persona New Booklet Essay: DVD introduction by Emily W. Leider, author of Dark Lover - The Life and Death of Rudolph Valentino

Beyond the Rocks

The rediscovery and restoration of any film long believed lost is good news. Beyond the Rocks inspired still more excitement at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival because it was the only movie ever to costar two of the silent era's highest-wattage luminaries: Gloria Swanson and Rudolph Valentino.

Cultural cliché holds that Swanson's acting was as garish as her makeup, and the legend of Valentino is awash in camp. Yet in this picture--however preposterously plotted by Elinor (It) Glyn--both deliver very natural performances of behavioral subtlety and discretion. Swanson, as the loving daughter of a retired officer (Alec B. Francis), is willing to do anything to ensure that Papa's twilight years be comfortable. That includes marrying a much older, vulgar businessman (Robert Bolder) as wealthy as he is unappealing. It's inconvenient that she's just fallen for a dashing nobleman (Valentino) who's saved her from (1) drowning and (2) falling off an Alp. Both these beautiful people struggle to behave honorably, right up through a final reel in which the unsympathetic husband takes them--and the audience--by surprise.

Now, we mustn't make overmuch of a good thing: Beyond the Rocks, ably but unexcitingly directed by Sam Wood, isn't a lost Murnau or the uncut Greed. But it's a very respectable movie, free of the excesses (except Swanson's increasingly florid costumes!) carelessly attributed to silent films in general; and as a long-delayed footnote to two legendary careers, its historical importance is considerable. The Nederlands Filmmuseum restoration is gloriously sharp (apart from a few spasms of almost impenetrable nitrate deterioration), and the new score by Henny Vrienten sounds more like Mark Isham than the organ-and-calliope accompaniment too many silents have suffered from. --Richard T. Jameson

BEYOND THE ROCKS stars film legends Gloria Swanson and Rudolph Valentino at the height of their careers and sexual appeal. This outstanding silent romance was long considered one of the great "lost" films from the Hollywood golden age. Its amazing rediscovery by the Nederlands Filmmuseum made headlines around the world.

Sam Wood (GOODBYE MR. CHIPS, PRIDE OF THE YANKEES) directs this delirious Elinor Glyn melodrama/roller-coaster ride through the English countryside, the Swiss Alps, Paris, London and the Sahara Desert! Brilliantly restored with a wonderful new orchestral score, BEYOND THE ROCKS is ready for its close-up.

Son of the Sheik

Blood & Sand

Rudolph Valentino's star power burns through this adaptation of Vicente Blasco Ibanez's exotic melodrama of an Andalusian peasant boy who becomes the greatest matador in all of Spain. The swaggering but sincere Valentino marries good Catholic girl Lila Lee, a coy innocent with bow-tie lips, but is seduced by voracious vamp Nita Naldi, a high-society man-eater who decides to add a bullfighter to her list of conquests. Journeyman director Fred Niblo (the 1925 version of Ben-Hur) mounts this grand piece of romantic nonsense with little subtlety but plenty of spectacle, and in the best Hollywood tradition celebrates the macho glamour of the sport while decrying its cruelty. While it lacks the grace or style of Rouben Mamoulian's 1941 color remake, Valentino's charisma and confidence and smoldering eyes give the film a simmering, sultry life that no remake has been able to capture. --Sean Axmaker

The Married Virgin

The silent screen's greatest lover in an early performance. "The Married Virgin" is one of the first films featuring Rudolph Valentino, who would soon star in "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" and "The Sheik," establishing him as a silent era screen icon in 1921. Valentino plays Count Roberto di Fraccini, a fortune hunter having an affair with the wife of a wealthy older businessman while trying to finagle a large sum of money from the family by any means necessary. Valentino's striking appearance and the strength of his performance foreshadow the superstar he would soon become.

The Eagle

Set in the Imperial Court of 18th-century Russia, "The Eagle" is a dashing and romantic adventure in which Rudolph Valentino gives what many consider to be his finest screen performance. Here is a role tailor-made for the legendary Valentino--that of Vladimir, the handsome young Cossack guardsman who is banished after rejecting the amorous advances of Catherine the Great (stunningly portrayed by Louise Dresser) and becomes the "Black Eagle," a Russian Robin Hood dedicated to robbing the rich and giving to the down-trodden peasants.