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14/6/2002

The Image of the 'Latin Lover'

Museum of the Moving Image, Astoria

Rudolph Valentino and Other Exotic Lovers Explores The Image of the "Latin Lover" in 1920s Hollywood

Film series includes silent movies with live music: THE SHEIK, CAMILLE, THE TORRENT, IN GAY MADRID and more, with such stars as Valentino, Ramon Novarro, and Greta Garbo.

The Jazz Age, the era in which the Hollywood star system came into full flower, was also a period marked by changing sexual mores and social values. Women were free to be flappers...and they desired something more exotic than the wholesome heroes of the late teens. No star embodied the transgression of "normal" male sexuality more than Rudolph Valentino, who will be featured along with some of his counterparts in a film series at the American Museum of the Moving Image.
The series, Rudolph Valentino and Other Exotic Lovers, runs from June 15 through June 30, 2002, and includes a dozen feature films, starring Valentino, Roman Novarro, Gilbert Roland, Ricardo Cortez, paired with such actresses as Dolores Del Rio, Raquel Torres--and even the Swedish import Greta Garbo. Nearly all the films in the series, including THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE, BLOOD AND SAND, THE TORRENT, THE TEMPTRESS, THE SHEIK, LOVES OF CARMEN, and CAMILLE (which will be shown in two versions--one with Valentino, the other with Gilbert Roland), are silent with live musical accompaniment by Donald Sosin.
Many of the films will be shown in restored archival prints, from the UCLA Film and Television Archive, the Library of Congress, and The Museum of Modern Art. The series was made possible with the support of the National Endowment for the Arts, and was organized by consulting curator Richard Koszarski.
Rudolph Valentino arrived at Ellis Island in December 1913, an eighteen-year-old Italian immigrant from Castelleneta. His career might have developed similarly to that of Robert De Niro's Vito Corleone (his name does appear on the city police blotter), but Valentino found other ways out of New York's ghettos. Within a few years he had moved up from taxi-dancing to bit parts in early feature films shot in New York and New Jersey, then to larger roles in Hollywood. But "Signor Rodolfo" soon hit a glass ceiling, his Mediterranean complexion typing him as what was then called a "greaser." The year Valentino made his first films, American studios were still producing pictures with titles like THE GREASER'S REVENGE. These were often westerns, whose "greasers" were Mexican villains bested by upstanding American heroes of northern European ancestry. But in a 1918 trade ad, "Rodolfo Di Valentina" offered himself as "a new style heavy," a different sort of villain whose threatening sexuality held the promise of forbidden passions. Three years later, in the spectacular adaptation of Vicente Blasco-Ibanez's THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE, the "new style heavy" had become a new-style hero.
Of course, Valentino was in the right place at the right time. A moral earthquake was bound to happen in the years following the Great War, and Valentino was at its epicenter. The Hispanic or Mediterranean "greaser" suddenly vanished, and in the wake of Valentino there was a new stereotype: the Latin Lover.
The Latin Lovers provided a new model for relations between the sexes. They did not promise comfort and stability. Loving them might even be dangerous. But the payoff was worth the risk, and for a decade or more their blatantly sensual style of lovemaking brought European sexual mores to American screens. Because even Valentino could not fulfill every woman's fantasy, the role was taken on by a host of eager Latin hopefuls: Ramon Novarro, Gilbert Roland, Ricardo Cortez, Don Alvarado, Antonio Moreno, Cesar Romero. Most were the genuine article, born and bred in Spain or Mexico (except for Cortez, who was really a Viennese actor named Jacob Krantz). There were women, too, like Dolores del Rio and Raquel Torres, who provided a heavy-breathing model of female sexuality far removed from all-American ideals. When playing especially liberated characters, even Nordics like Garbo or Dietrich had to sling a mantilla over their shoulders and be Latin for the duration. This sexual costume party didn't last long, of course, once the Depression began to burst all such fantasy bubbles. Special thanks to The Douris Corporation, The Library of Congress, The Museum of Modern Art, The UCLA Film and Television Archive, and Warner Bros.

Series dates: June 15-30, 2002

All films (except for June 30) are silent with live musical accompaniment by Donald Sosin.

Saturday, June 15
2:00 p.m.
THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE
Metro, 1921, 122 mins. Directed by Rex Ingram. With Rudolph Valentino, Alice Terry. In the film that made him an instant celebrity, Valentino tangos through Paris while the Great War rocks the foundations of western civilization.

4:30 p.m.
BLOOD AND SAND
Paramount, 1922, 113 mins. Directed by Fred Niblo. With Rudolph Valentino, Nita Naldi. Playing another doomed Ibanez hero, Valentino triumphs as a celebrated matador whose most dangerous encounters occur outside the bull ring.

Sunday, June 16
2:00 p.m.
THE TORRENT
MGM, 1926, 75 mins. Directed by Monta Bell. With Greta Garbo, Ricardo Cortez. Greta Gustaffson (Garbo, in her first American film) and Jacob Krantz (who had taken the screen name Cortez) put their own spin on Latin lovemaking in yet another Ibanez adaptation.

4:00 p.m.
THE TEMPTRESS
MGM, 1926, 93 mins. Directed by Fred Niblo, Mauritz Stiller. With Greta Garbo, Antonio Moreno. Garbo plays a female Valentino who goes to pieces when she falls for Spanish-born heartthrob Antonio Moreno.

Saturday, June 22
2:00 p.m. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS ARCHIVAL PRINT
THE SHEIK
Paramount, 1921, 85 mins. Directed by George Melford. With Rudolph Valentino, Agnes Ayres. Based on the once notorious novel by E.M. Hull, this cultural milestone dared push the notion of exotic love toward the racial divide.

4:00 p.m.
SON OF THE SHEIK
United Artists, 1926, 74 mins. Directed by George Fitzmaurice. With Rudolph Valentino, Vilma Banky. In his farewell to the screen, Valentino manages to parody his own image without losing the passion that made it so compelling.

Sunday, June 23
2:00 p.m.
LOVES OF CARMEN
Fox, 1927, 90 mins. Directed by Raoul Walsh. With Dolores Del Rio, Don Alvarado. Was Merimee's gypsy the first Latin Lover? Directing the fabulous Mexican star Dolores Del Rio, Raoul Walsh turns up the heat on an old favorite.

4:00 p.m. UCLA FILM & TV ARCHIVE RESTORED PRINT
THE DEVIL IS A WOMAN
Paramount, 1935, 83 mins. Directed by Josef von Sternberg. With Marlene Dietrich, Lionel Atwill, Cesar Romero. Von Sternberg's baroque vision of the battle of the sexes, with his Berlin nightingale as the ultimate Spanish cigarette worker, Concha Perez.

Saturday, June 29
2:00 p.m.
CAMILLE
Metro, 1921, 65 mins. Directed by Ray Smallwood. With Alla Nazimova, Rudolph Valentino. Nazimova's modernistic version of the tale of the tubercular courtesan not only featured Valentino as Armand, but eye-popping sets by his future wife, Natacha Rambova.

4:00 p.m.
CAMILLE
First National, 1927, 54 mins. Directed by Fred Niblo. With Norma Talmadge, Gilbert Roland. Like Nazimova, Norma Talmadge played Camille in modern dress, and cast an upcoming Latin lover as her Armand (Mexican Gilbert Roland, better known later as The Cisco Kid). A rare screening of the only surviving print of this version.

Sunday, June 30
2:00 p.m.
IN GAY MADRID
MGM, 1930, 85 mins. Directed by Robert Z. Leonard. With Ramon Novarro, Dorothy Jordan. Xavier Cugat provides the musical accompaniment to this all-talking (and partially singing) romantic comedy, a rare Latin role for Valentino's nearest rival, Mexican idol Ramon Novarro.

4:00 p.m. UCLA FILM & TELEVISION ARCHIVE RESTORED PRINT
UNDER A TEXAS MOON
Warner Bros., 1930, 80 mins. Directed by Michael Curtiz. With Frank Fay, Raquel Torres. Mexican adventurer Don Carlos (Frank Fay--don't ask), captures cattle rustlers and toys with Latin lovelies Raquel Torres, Armida, and Myrna Loy. The first musical western produced in Technicolor, preservation print courtesy of the UCLA Film and Television Archive.

MUSEUM INFORMATION:
Gallery Hours: Tuesday through Friday, 12 p.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Group tours by appointment, Tuesday through Friday, 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m.

Museum Admission: $8.50 for adults; $5.50 for persons over 65 and for students with ID; $4.50 for children ages 5-18. Children 4 and under and Museum members are admitted free.

Film Programs: Screenings are free with Museum admission unless otherwise noted. Reservation privileges are available to Museum members only. Location: 35 Avenue at 36 Street in Astoria.

Subway: R or V trains (R or G on weekends) to Steinway Street. N train to Broadway.

Program Information: Telephone: (718) 784-0077; Web site.

The American Museum of the Moving Image occupies a building owned by the City of New York. With the assistance of the Queens Borough President and the Queens Delegation of the New York City Council, the Museum receives support from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. Vital support is also provided by the New York State Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Natural Heritage Trust (administered by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation), the National Science Foundation, corporations, foundations, and individuals.

Contact: Tomoko Kawamoto / 718-784-4520 ext 219

American Museum of the Moving Image
35 Avenue at 36 Street, Astoria, New York, 11106

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