Ken Russell lets you know early that he will be operating at his customary level of crassness (he shows you the funeral parlor employees boarding up windows with coffin lids in order to protect Valentino's body from the crush of admirers); the chief difference between this and Russell's other artist biographies is that he has never before felt quite so free to belittle the artist's creative -- in addition to his personal -- life (he shows you a full house watching The Sheik, every patron a woman). The casting of the Slavic Nureyev as the great Latin Lover of the silent screen proves to be as misbegotten an idea as it, in foresight, seemed. His Russian-ness alters the very essence of Valentino's appeal, and the inevitable exploiting of Nureyev's special talent fosters the impression that Valentino was in his true element only when he was employed as a vaudeville dancer. With Michelle Phillips, Leslie Caron, Seymour Cassel. (1977) — Duncan Shepherd
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