Rudolph Valentino Collection DVD 3 Disc Set 2008 / The Sheik, The Eagle, Blood & Sand / Black & White Silent Classics

UPC 5060005702458

MADE IN EU

REGION 2 PAL DVD Black & White

Audio: Silent

!!! Condition of this DVD set is USED VERY GOOD !!!

(3 Discs)

English Summary:

DISC 1

The Sheik is a 1921 American silent romantic drama film produced by Famous Players-Lasky, directed by George Melford, starring Rudolph Valentino and Agnes Ayres, and featuring Adolphe Menjou. It was based on the bestselling romance novel of the same name by Edith Maude Hull and was adapted for the screen by Monte M. Katterjohn. The film was a box-office hit and helped propel Valentino to stardom.

In the North Africa town of Biskra, headstrong Lady Diana Mayo (Agnes Ayres) refuses a marriage proposal because she believes it would be the end of her independence. Against her brother's wishes, she is planning a month-long trip into the desert, escorted only by natives.

When Diana goes to the local casino, she is informed it has been appropriated for the evening by an important sheik, and that none but Arabs may enter. Annoyed at being told what she cannot do, and her curiosity piqued, Diana borrows an Arab dancer's costume and sneaks in. Inside, she finds men gambling for new wives. When she is selected to be the next prize, she resists. Sheik Ahmed Ben Hassan (Rudolph Valentino) intervenes, then realizes she is white. Amused, he sends her away. Afterward, Mustapha Ali (Charles Brinley) informs the Sheik she is the woman he has been hired to guide tomorrow. The Sheik hatches a plan. Early the next morning, he sneaks into her room and tampers with the bullets in her revolver as she is sleeping.

DISC 2

The Eagle is a 1925 American silent film directed by Clarence Brown and starring Rudolph Valentino, Vilma Bánky, and Louise Dresser.^[1] Based on the novel Dubrovsky by Alexander Pushkin,^[2] the film is about a lieutenant in the Russian army who catches the eye of Czarina Catherine II. After he rejects her advances and flees, she puts out a warrant for his arrest, dead or alive. When he learns that his father has been persecuted and killed, he dons a black mask and becomes an outlaw. Prints currently exist in the film holdings of EmGee Film Library and in private film collections.^[1][2] Black Eagle does not exist in the novel and was inspired by the performance of Douglas Fairbanks as Zorro in The Mark of Zorro.

DISC 3

Blood and Sand is a 1922 American silent drama film produced by Paramount Pictures, directed by Fred Niblo and starring Rudolph Valentino, Lila Lee and Nita Naldi. It was based on the 1909 Spanish novel Sangre y arena (Blood and Sand) by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez and the play version of the book by Thomas Cushing.

Juan Gallardo (Valentino), a village boy born into poverty, grows up to become one of the greatest matadors in Spain. He marries a friend from his childhood, the beautiful and virtuous Carmen (Lee), but after he achieves fame and fortune he finds himself drawn to Doña Sol (Naldi), a wealthy, seductive widow.

They embark on a torrid affair with sadomasochistic overtones, but Juan, feeling guilty over his betrayal of Carmen, tries to free himself of Doña Sol. Furious at being rejected, she exposes their affair to Carmen and Juan's mother, seemingly destroying his marriage. Growing more and more miserable and dissipated, Juan becomes reckless in the arena. He is eventually killed in a bullfight but does manage to reconcile with Carmen moments before he dies.

There is also a subplot involving a local outlaw whose career is paralleled to Juan's throughout the film by the village philosopher: Juan's fatal injury in the bullring comes moments after the outlaw is shot by the police.

Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Pierre Filiberto Guglielmi dia Valentina D'Antoguolla (May 6, 1895 – August 23, 1926), known professionally as Rudolph Valentino, was an Italian actor based in the United States who starred in several well-known silent films including The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Sheik, Blood and Sand, The Eagle, and The Son of the Sheik.

He was an early pop icon, and a sex symbol of the 1920s, who was known in Hollywood as the Latin Lover (a title invented for him by Hollywood moguls), The Great Lover, or simply Valentino.^[1] His premature death at the age of 31 caused mass hysteria among his fans and further propelled his status as a cultural film icon.