Valentino (1977) on Netflix
At Rudolph Valentino's 1926 wake in New York, the women from his past gather. Each remembers a taxi dancer who dreamed of an orange grove in California and became a screen idol.
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- Netflix2.4/5
- IMDb6.0/102,605 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes36%
Featurette
Plot summary
A taxi dancer and gigolo working for Billie Streeter in New York, Rudolph Valentino tells Bianca de Saulles of his wish to own an orange grove in California. When mobsters rob him, he heads west, where the screenwriter June Mathis spots him in a bit part and recommends him for The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the film that makes him a star. At his 1926 funeral in New York, Alla Nazimova makes a scene for the photographers and claims a relationship with him, while the art designer Natacha Rambova tells reporters she and Valentino are separated but still close through the spirit world.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Valentino (1977)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Ken Russell first asked dancer Rudolf Nureyev to play Vaslav Nijinsky, and only made him the star as Valentino after Paul Clarke, the dancer initially cast in the title role, died of a heart attack before production; director Vittorio De Sica had also once considered Nureyev for the part.
- Ken Russell scored Valentino largely with music by the American composer Ferde Grofé, who had died fifteen years earlier; Grofé's son in Los Angeles gave Russell access to numerous recordings of his father's compositions.
- Rudolf Nureyev and Michelle Phillips clashed on the set of Valentino over their approaches to the material; Nureyev, trained in dance discipline, thought Phillips's relaxed free-wheeling acting too unrestrained, and admitted after filming that he found it difficult to play opposite her.
- Ken Russell explored silent film star Rudolph Valentino's sexual life, including the rumors published during Valentino's lifetime that he was homosexual, something no earlier film adaptation of his life had done.
- Michelle Phillips, cast as Natacha Rambova, invited Ken Russell to dinner at a Mexican restaurant and turned up with her hair done up in braids as she imagined Rambova would have worn it, saying she did not want to leave everything to chance.
- Cinematographer Peter Suschitzky said Ken Russell would order retakes just to gain a fraction of an inch more headroom or space around an actor's feet, not for a better performance but for the camera.
- Ken Russell later called his decision to make Valentino instead of The Rose with Bette Midler the biggest mistake of his career.
