Valentino Movie Review

Whenever I admit that I actually enjoy this flick, I get this uncomprehending LOOK, followed by, “And you call yourself a FILM CRITIC?” No, I call myself Monica. Under threat of social torture, I will confess to being a movie reviewer, but that's a full step away from what I really am, a movie buff who doesn't care a hoot whether my opinion on a flick is shared or not. I didn't put any MONEY into Valentino’s escrow account, I just dig its operatic excesses, that's all. Once, when Rudolf Nureyev came to dance in San Francisco, his foot was hurt and after listening to a doctor's gobbledygook, he took a swig of vodka and sailed through a scheduled performance without a hitch; I didn't even realize he was in pain until I read the newspapers the next day. Nureyev was exactly the sort of guy who should have been playing Valentino! NOT Anthony Dexter! NOT Franco Nero! As always, Ken Russell doesn't even try to make a scrupulously researched dramatic documentary. He has always been more intrigued in the emotional landscapes of his famous subjects (Tchaikovsky, Mahler) than in accurate detail. Here, he is interested in the mythology of fame and how it helped to destroy the life of the living legend that Rodolfo Guglielmo became between 1921 and 1926. The casting all the way down the line is eccentric for anyone else, but on the mark for Russell. Who could be a zanier Alla Nazimova (1879–1945) than Leslie Caron? Who was more adept at playing bitches than Michelle Phillips as Natasha Rambova (1897–1969)? And who else would you cast as Jesse Lasky (1880–1958)? (NO, not Milton Berle, that's for Aaron Spelling's 1975 telefeature!) Dead End kid Huntz Hall, of course! Russell's vision of the ‘20s undoubtedly exists only in his imagination, but his depiction of the truths about the pervasiveness of fame applies throughout the 20th century. Valentino had been a beggar, a gardener, and a taxi dancer, but nothing prepared him for his mass worship by women and derisive baiting by men. In an aria-like sequence, Russell flashes back and forth between Valentino's disintegrating personal life and screaming Rudymaniacs. There's an abundance of sex and cynicism in Valentino, with Nureyev vividly recreating the naive, terror-stricken title character at the maelstrom's core. This surprisingly moral picture received an “X” certificate in Great Britain. Based on the Brad Steiger book, Valentino: An Intimate Expose.

1977 (R) 127m/C GB Rudolf Nureyev, Leslie Caron, Michelle Phillips, Carol Kane, Felicity Kendal, Seymour Cassel, Peter Vaughan, William Hootkins, Huntz Hall, David DeKeyser, Alfred Marks, Anton Diffring; D: Ken Russell; W: Mardik Martin, Ken Russell, John Byrum; C: Peter Suschitzsky; M: Ferde Grofe Jr. VHS