Nowadays, We Call it Stalking

The Sheik is best remembered as the movie that rocketed Rudolph Valentino to superstardom. Based on an infamous 1919 potboiler by E.M. Hull, The Sheik was the precursor to the modern romance novel.

Paramount acquired the rights but knew that the material would have to be handled carefully if it was to pass censor boards. The biggest problem, however, lay not in content but in casting. Who would play the exotic sheik who abducts a civilized woman across the desert sands?

The answer came in Rex Ingram’s The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Women across the country loved Rudolph Valentino, the handsome young lead. Unhappy with his situation at Metro (the studio refused to acknowledge his popularity and pay him accordingly), Valentino signed on with Paramount.

It may seem odd in hindsight, but Valentino was not the star of The Sheik. He was billed as a featured player beneath the leading lady, Agnes Ayres. Miss Ayres is all but forgotten to modern viewers. At the time, she was a popular leading lady who had appeared in some of Cecil B. DeMille’s hit films.

With the naughtier bits excised from the plot, the leading man found and ably supported by Adolphe Menjou, Walter Long and Lucien Littlefield, The Sheik was ready to begin filming. And, much to the surprise of everyone, it took the motion picture world by storm.

Valentino plays a liberal-minded, European-educated desert chieftain who is in the market for a wife. looking for the just the right girl, the Sheik goes on a journey to Biskra. He knows that his search is over the moment he sees Diana.

Lady Diana Mayo (Agnes Ayres) is an English noblewoman who is about to embark on a solo exploration of the desert, accompanied only by guides. Frankly, that doesn’t even sound like such a good idea nowadays. The other ladies of Biskra are understandably scandalized.

But Diana will have her own way. She gets herself into even more trouble by crashing an Arab-only shindig at the casino. The Sheik spots her at once and makes a pass. Diana pulls a gun on him and leaves. The Sheik is smitten. Without further ado, he begins to plot.

Diana sets out on her trip across the sands of Yuma, which often doubled for the Sahara in silent films. Diana’s journey doesn’t last long. The Sheik swoops down and drags her off to his oasis home.

Surprised that she is not in the mood for romance and after a fairly tense argument on the subject, the Sheik thinks that the direct approach (i.e. caveman) is the best. Diana believes otherwise and starts to cry. The Sheik feels like a heel, which indeed he is, and rethinks his strategy.

Diana spends the next week not speaking to the Sheik, though she secretly is starting to like him. Why this happens, I have no idea. I suppose we could put it down to Stockholm Syndrome.

Things grow frigid again when she discovers that he has invited a friend to visit. Raoul is a French doctor and author. Diana is humiliated to think he will see her. She plans an escape. I’m not sure why it took her this long to think of it.

Raoul (a slightly embarrassed-looking Adolphe Menjou) has joined the Sheik. He is not pleased with his friend’s romantic antics. The Sheik is confident that he has done the right thing but his cockiness fades when Diana’s horse shows up without Diana.

The horse threw Diana during her ride to freedom and she is wandering the desert in the usual movie manner. She stumbles a holy caravan that is really a group of bandits in disguise. The bandit leader, Omair (the reliably villainous Walter Long), catches sight of Diana and wants her for himself. Before he can snatch her, the Sheik shows up and snatches her back.

Raoul watches with a disapproving eye but is too tactful to scold the Sheik again. Never let a felony come between friends, I always say.

In spite of the fact that he is doing absolutely nothing to help her, Diana begins to spend a lot of time with Raoul. The Sheik is jealous but in overhearing their conversations, he realizes that Diana is in love with him after all. Touched, he offers her back her pistol ostensibly to defend herself from the spies of Omair. Firearms: the gift that keeps on giving.

While Diana is out riding, Raoul tries to convince the Sheik to let her go. Now it’s the Sheik’s turn to realize that he is in love with Diana.

Meanwhile, Diana stops her ride to write a little love note in the sand to the Sheik. Suddenly, Omair and his accomplices appear, kill her bodyguards and Diana is once more kidnapped. She knows the drill pretty well by now and immediately faints.

The Sheik stumbles on the scene of the crime, including Diana’s miraculously preserved sand writing. Realizing that he must save his lady love from a fate worse than death— and never you mind the fact that he tried the same thing only a few days before— the Sheik springs into action.

It would be an exaggeration to say that The Sheik created a craze for all things eastern. What it did was turn a craze into a phenomenon. Slang, music, books and most certainly movies felt the Sheik affect. Latin leading men were in high demand to fill the growing number of Sheik parts.

For all that, The Sheik is a rather badly made movie. Valentino himself hated the picture and tried his best unsuccessfully to avoid taking Sheik parts. It’s easy to see why.

Poor Valentino’s performance has not aged well. As so many silent film historians have pointed out, he was not a terrific actor but he was capable of being a rather good one. It’s hard to see that from the first half of the movie, which he spends leering at Agnes Ayres, his eyes bursting out of their sockets. He redeems himself slightly in the second half and you can see a touch of his considerable screen charm.

The rest of the cast is also guilty of overacting, from Agnes Ayres emoting to Lucien Littlefield in a creepy performance that was supposed to be funny. Only the perpetually dapper Adolphe Menjou comes through unscathed by the rampant silliness.

The costumes illustrate the hierarchy of the actors: Miss Ayres has a new dress for almost every scene while Valentino has only two costumes for the entire film. The situation would be reversed in Son of the Sheik.

George Melford’s direction is pedestrian in this film. Melford would later be relegated to making Spanish language versions of Hollywood talkies. His modern reputation rests on the Spanish version of Dracula, filmed on the same sets as the horror classic. Some viewers (myself included) consider it superior to the more famous English language version. It included as an extra in the DVD release of Dracula.

The racial issues are handled in the standard Hollywood manner: interracial relationships cannot end happily; therefore, one of the partners must die or turn out to be a white person in disguise. That was the prevailing attitude of the censors at that time and as ridiculous as it seems today, it was an attitude that much of the contemporary audience shared.

For all its faults, though, The Sheik has a quirky little charm of its own. It’s pure hokum but it was intended to be just that. It was designed as a glitzy and (for the time) racy fantasy that would provide an evening’s escape for the viewer.

The plot and subject matter were perfect for 1921 but times have changed and the film has not weathered well.

The Sheik should be enjoyed for what it is: a period piece. The views of race and romance can lead to some interesting discussions. It reflects the attitudes and beliefs of the pop culture of its time and as such it is fascinating.

While such Valentino movies as The Eagle and The Son of the Sheik, a direct sequel to The Sheik are better showcases for his talents, The Sheik has an almost surreal charm.

For a newcomer to silents, though, perhaps it would be wise to watch the second film first.

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