Valentino (1951) DVD-R

Starring Anthony Dexter, Eleanor Parker, Richard Carlson, Patricia Medina, Joseph Calleia,
Dona Drake, Otto Kruger
Directed by Lewis Allen

Print: color
Runtime: 102 min.
Genre: drama

One of the most notorious flops in the history of Columbia Pictures, Valentino is actually
fairly entertaining — but only when regarded as a work of fiction. In dramatizing the life of
silent-screen Latin lover Rudolph Valentino, screenwriter George Bruce ignored virtually all
of the facts, even those in the public domain; in addition, with the exception of Valentino, all
the real-life characters' names have been changed to avoid lawsuits. What's left is an
amusing fairy tale about a young Neapolitan dancer named Rudolph Valentino (Anthony
Dexter), who joins a U.S.-bound dance troupe headed by his lover Marie Torres (Dona
Drake). Onboard ship, Valentino makes the acquaintance of famous movie star Joan
Carlisle (Eleanor Parker), sparking a brief transatlantic romance. Once in America,
Valentino supports himself as a dishwasher and gigolo before Carlisle introduces him to big-
time director William King (Richard Carlson), who arranges for the young immigrant to
attain a few extra roles in Hollywood. Valentino becomes an overnight star after being
selected to play the lead in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. As his fame rises,
Valentino reignites his affair with Carlisle, but will not commit himself to marriage. She
marries King on the rebound, but the romance starts all over again when Valentino and
Carlisle are cast together in The Sheik. At the height of his stardom, Valentino dies of
peritonitis. The film ends with the mysterious "Lady in Black" making her annual pilgrimage
to Valentino's tomb. It serves no purpose to list the film's many inaccuracies and
anachronisms, though it's worth mentioning that his last film was not The Sheik but Son of
the Sheik. As a filmed biography, Valentino is worthless. As a movie pure and simple, it's not
all that bad. Even the much-maligned Anthony Dexter, an unknown who was cast purely on
the basis of physical resemblance, is passable in the title role, though he comes nowhere
near the original Valentino's magnetism and charisma.