The White Sheik (U.)
Directed by Federico Fellini. 1952.
Starring Alberto Sordi, Brunella Bovo, Leopoldo Trieste, Giulietta Masina. Italian with subtitles. Black and White. Out on Blu-ray/ DVD from Studiocanal. 104 mins.
Studiocanal is getting in on the Fellini centenary shindig with the release of a couple of his early films, this and Oscar winner Nights of Cabiria. They are linked by the character of Cabiria, played Masina, who appears briefly in this. They are also two of the seven films that make up the seven and a half films referenced in the title of his most celebrated work, 8½.*
This is Fellini's first solo directorial credit, (the earlier Variety Lights was co-directed with Alberto Lattuada) a light comedy about a honeymoon disrupted by the bride's infatuation with the Rudolph Valentino-like White Sheik, who appears in a series of photo-novels. Though there is nothing here to suggest this was the work of the man who would be one of the greats, it's unmistakably Fellini, with a large number of his trademark shots and themes already present.
Unusually for a master's early work, it's enormously entertaining. On the first day of their Roman honeymoon, shy young bride (Bovo) sneaks away from her slightly pompous husband (Trieste, a man who looks like a synthesise of Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel in The Producers) and ends up on a beach for a photoshoot with her idol, Fernando Rivoli (Sordi) who plays The White Sheik in the photo-novels. Even discovering that this Valentino is portly and double-chinned can't break the fantasy but harsh reality will soon intrude. In Rome, her husband has to cover for her absence as the clock ticks down for their audience with the Pope at eleven the next morning.
* If you are interested in catching the ½, the BFI Player has Boccaccio '70, a compendium film from 1962 that containing a Fellini section in which a saucy billboard of Anita Eckberg torments a repressed campaigner against promiscuity. It's his first film in colour and a lot of fun, if a little overlong. (An inspiration surely for Woody Allen's Oedipus Wrecks, his contribution to New York Stories.) This is one of four films so, although it's nearly an hour, does it really count as a ½?
Other Fellini reviews:
I Vitelloni
La Strada
Fellini Satyricon
Fellini Roma
Fellini Casanova
City of Women
Orchestra Rehearsal.
I Clowns
The Voice of the Moon.
Directed by Federico Fellini. 1952.
Starring Alberto Sordi, Brunella Bovo, Leopoldo Trieste, Giulietta Masina. Italian with subtitles. Black and White. Out on Blu-ray/ DVD from Studiocanal. 104 mins.
Studiocanal is getting in on the Fellini centenary shindig with the release of a couple of his early films, this and Oscar winner Nights of Cabiria. They are linked by the character of Cabiria, played Masina, who appears briefly in this. They are also two of the seven films that make up the seven and a half films referenced in the title of his most celebrated work, 8½.*
This is Fellini's first solo directorial credit, (the earlier Variety Lights was co-directed with Alberto Lattuada) a light comedy about a honeymoon disrupted by the bride's infatuation with the Rudolph Valentino-like White Sheik, who appears in a series of photo-novels. Though there is nothing here to suggest this was the work of the man who would be one of the greats, it's unmistakably Fellini, with a large number of his trademark shots and themes already present.
Unusually for a master's early work, it's enormously entertaining. On the first day of their Roman honeymoon, shy young bride (Bovo) sneaks away from her slightly pompous husband (Trieste, a man who looks like a synthesise of Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel in The Producers) and ends up on a beach for a photoshoot with her idol, Fernando Rivoli (Sordi) who plays The White Sheik in the photo-novels. Even discovering that this Valentino is portly and double-chinned can't break the fantasy but harsh reality will soon intrude. In Rome, her husband has to cover for her absence as the clock ticks down for their audience with the Pope at eleven the next morning.
* If you are interested in catching the ½, the BFI Player has Boccaccio '70, a compendium film from 1962 that containing a Fellini section in which a saucy billboard of Anita Eckberg torments a repressed campaigner against promiscuity. It's his first film in colour and a lot of fun, if a little overlong. (An inspiration surely for Woody Allen's Oedipus Wrecks, his contribution to New York Stories.) This is one of four films so, although it's nearly an hour, does it really count as a ½?
Other Fellini reviews:
I Vitelloni
La Strada
Fellini Satyricon
Fellini Roma
Fellini Casanova
City of Women
Orchestra Rehearsal.
I Clowns
The Voice of the Moon.
