Melford, George

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.

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

The Sheik

This is the classic tale of Shiek Ahmed Ben Hassan (Valentino), who kidnaps a British beauty (Ayers), and spirits her away to his city of tents in the desert. She resists all of his amorous moves, continually begging to be returned home. He finally complies, but on her way home, she realizes that she has come to care for the sheik. Ayers is kidnapped on the way by the villainous Omair (Walter Long), to be dealt a fate worse than death. Valentino and his army save Ayers just before she commits suicide, but he is severely wounded. Ayers nurses Valentino back to health, finally able to declare her undying love for the Sheik. The film that created Rudolph Valentino's reputation as a legendary screen lover.

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Regeneration/Young Romance

New York gangs have rarely been as realistically depicted as in this vivid, grungy 1915 melodrama. Aside from its status as one of the earliest gangster pictures, Regeneration is the first feature in the long directorial career of Raoul Walsh (White Heat), whose marvelously energetic and manly adventures brightened Hollywood's Golden Age. The plot is a stock tale of a hood (Rockliffe Fellowes, who has a true mug's face) reformed by a social worker (Anna Q. Nilsson, a silent star with some resemblance to Leelee Sobieski), but Walsh got the grime of the slums into the very grain of the photography. He once explained, "I went down around the waterfront and around the docks and into the saloons and got all kinds of gangster types, people with terrible faces, hiding in doorways." You can almost smell the beer slopping out of the pail when the hero (as a boy) brings home his cruel stepfather's alcoholic sustenance from the tavern. --Robert Horton

The first full-length gangster picture ever made according to its director, Raoul Walsh, who would later make "The Roaring Twenties," "High Sierra," "The Bowery" and "White Heat." "Regeneration" (72 min.) is a powerful slum melodrama produced in 1915 on location in the lower east side of New York City, with a gaggle of authentic low-life types performing alongside professional actors. As an added bonus on this DVD, "Young Romance" (58 min.), also released in 1915, is a recent rediscovery that forever silences the claim that refined comedy cannot be conveyed via the screen. This disguise plot, worthy of an Elizabethan drama, was written by William deMille (brother of Cecil, father of Agnes), and directed by George Melford ("The Sheik," the Spanish "Dracula"). "Regeneration" is in the Library of Congress National Registry of essential American films.

East of Borneo

Penal Code

The Viking

Set against the backdrop of the icy oceanic dangers of the Newfoundland seal hunt this film is technically and thematically a remarkable example of maverick filmmaking in the north. An extraordinary portrait of a people's "dramatic struggle for existence" with extensive actuality footage of shipboard life and the hunt itself woven into the story it captures scenes that had never before been recorded on film--and cost 26 lives in the making.System Requirements:Running Time: 73 minsFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DOCUMENTARIES/HISTORY UPC: 029502296025 Manufacturer No: 29602DVD

Officer 13

East of Borneo (1931)