THE SHEIK
starring Rudolph Valentino and Agnes Ayres
PHOTOPLAY
January, 1922
Here is romance. Red-hot. If you read the story you will go to
see the filmization. If you haven't, you will go anyway. This
is popular entertainment -- that and nothing more. But that is
enough. The best-selling story by E.M. Hull, scoffed at by the
higher-browed critics, but read and re-read by two-thirds of the
women in this country, has been made into a very exciting, very
old-fashioned photoplay.
It's the old-time adventure, much more artistically presented
than formerly, but still just a glorified movie. The exquisite
Agnes Ayres as Diana, the English heroine, and Rudolph Valentino
in the title role, perform their parts splendidly. George Melford's
direction is, as usual, competent, but not unusual. You should
see this if you aren't too weary to imagine that you might have
been Diana and The Sheik living their desert romance.
THE SHEIK
Starring Rudolph Valentino and Agnes Ayres
PICTURE PLAY
January, 1922
Also in the month's output arrives a screen version of a novel
which is as far from the original as it could well be. We refer
to the scenario which has been made from the preposterous and
phenomenal best seller, "The Sheik."
This is the hectic tale of an English girl in the clutches of
an Arabian chief, which has been for so long the delight of old
ladies' boarding houses and young ladies' seminaries. If published
during the same year as "Three Weeks," it probably would
have shocked as many people as that Elinor Glyn effusion. But,
in this era, it excited some mild amusement, but not a word of
protest from the book censors.
The screen censors are another thing again. We can just see them
patting "The Sheik" into a decorous mood mild enough
for the most tender mind. His fierceness -- which so delighted
the gentle spinster readers -- is all gone, his language and manner
are as meek as a Rollo book, and his attitude toward the kidnapped
heroine is that of a considerate and platonic friend rather than
the passionate, ruthless lover, "on an Arab shod with fire."
Of course, Rudolph Valentino was too young for this role, anyhow.
The Arab of the story was a disillusioned man with a hectic past
behind him. We liked Agnes Ayres better as the obstinate beauty
who shrinks from his advances, though we must say she didn't have
much to shrink from. Now it is hardly fair to blame the producers
for the meddling of the censors, because they would probably have
preferred to present the picture with all its lurid details. But
we do blame them for selecting a theme which was so obviously
designed to give the censor's knife full play.