THE CINEMA
WAS this the face that launched a thousand sheiks—these bulging eyes, these lips pendulous and trembling with lust, these nostrils puffing like a stallion's ? 0 tempora, 0 mores ! Today the violent gestures indicative of unbridled lechery are no more than comic, as comic as ,the verbose subtitles (" Bring forth the white gazelle, and guard closely the jealous one "), as comic as the heroine's short-skirted evening gowns. Surely The Sheik belongs to an era when Cinema was not yet quite respectable, when its revenue came from the tweenies or the counter-jumpers and its artistic level was that of the penny- passion-books our nursemaids devoured on summer beaches. And. Valentino, the most amazing figure. Hollywood ever produced, who was never an actor, but the graven image of all the sex-instincts of women's dreams, who was glorified like a dead Caesar into divinity, now appears, remotely funny in his stilted posturing, as he really was, a good-looking boy. This revival must be gall and wormwood to the myriad Pan Clubs which for all these years have kept his memory green.
Yet it is instructive to note that it was in the same -year as The Sheik (1923) that Chaplin produced A Woman _of Paris, one of the real landmarks in movie history ; this film, while retaining the naive plot which to that extent levels it with The Sheik, introduced an element of naturalism and of restraint fin opposition to the flyblown histrionics of the time. With it, for the first time, Cinema began to put away childish things, and perhaps its influence is nowhere more noticeable than in The Son of the Sheik (1926). Here is the same silly story,-the same deliberate sexual appeal, but toned down to some semblance of good taste. In The Sheik, settings and photography are ugly and inefficient ; in its sequel, we find a decor Amder Bakst's influence, by William Cameron Menzies, and lighting and camera work which need feel no shame in the company of a 1938 film. The subtitles have emerged from the tropical undergrowth of adjectival--verbiage; they are terse and tend most significantly to the wisecrack (" Today's peach, my lord, is tomorrow's prune ") ; the acting, within the limits of its tyrannic passion, is normal enough to make us believe in the existence of both Valentino and of the glamorous Vilna Banky (there was a woman !), and, in short, the film has dated sur- prisingly little. One needs only to accept, as we all used to without a thought, the conventions of silence and subtitles.
But what conventions they were ! How difficult, for us to accept them today ! For the silent film, even as the ballet, was forced to express everything by movement, be it grief, self-sacrifice, passion, or indigestion. The most normal conversations had to be expressed by a violence of movement and gesture entirely apart from normal experience. But since the coming of sound the need for such exaggeration has vanished, and the heaving breast and rolling eyes gives way to the muttered " Gee, honey, I lurve yer," followed, often as not, by a slap across the face with a grape-fruit. One may permit oneself a moment of nostalgia for the old days of grand passions, and at the same time remember most thankfully that there is one thing that never changes—the Sublime clowning of the slapstick technique.
Poor Valentino, and yet perhaps kicky Valentino, to have died when he did, and have been Spared the humiliation of seeing the modern heroes, who are loved for their looks alone, and not for their violence towards the beloved ; of seeing Robert Taylor—truly his successor—create a furore in a film in which he delivers only one casual and incompetent kiss !
BOth_these films should, therefore, be seen, even if they make some of us loOk back on ourselves as rather pathetic youngsters. They are of historic interest, and they also renew for us figures who have vanished—Agnes Ayres, last of-the old-type heroines, Karl Dane, of the humorous eyes, and the archetype of all villainy, Montague Love. It is even more instructive to view the performances of those who are , still with us, like Lucien Littlefield, and especially Adolphe Menjou, whose appearance in The Sheik, much moustachioed, and surmounted by the most grotesque of .frilled sun-helmets; can only increase our admiration for his long-continued adaptability' and gehuine
Previous page
