THE SHEIK (1921) *1/2 Must have struck a chord in a repressed society or something….I don't know. I know it's the movie that made Valentino Valentino , but…not so much. Not nearly great, like Blood and Sand . Agnes Ayres is one of the silly rich girls who long for the exotic and dangerous. Things haven't changed much…if you're a half-decent looking female it's not difficult to find the exotic and dangerous. She ends up kidnapped by Arab Valentino, who at least has the decency to make her a wife rather than sell her to white slavers once he's had some…and not being the brightest bulb in the batch she quickly develops Stockholm Syndrome (like Patty Hearst) and decides she kind of likes the guy. Which of course sets her up to get kidnapped by the really bad guy. In the brilliant spirit of the thing Valentino's forces storm the really bad guy's impregnable fortress by lifting one guy up over the wall. I guess part of the problem has always been that I've considered men who treat women as chattel and objects, to be missing out on the central dynamic of our universe as best we can know it. But it's less than that: Valentino spends much of the film in apparent facial paralysis, frozen in looks that resemble a halfwit vampire more than anything else. You keep wondering when Home for Special Needs Vampires Wagon is going to come drag him off. I understand that a lot of people loved this film. I'm glad they found something to do.
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