Movie Reviewed: The four horsemen and the apocalypse, starring Rudolph Valentino

Movie Reviewed: The four horsemen and the apocalypse, starring Rudolph Valentino

A family drama in the midst of WWI

This is a story about a family from Buenos Aires, Argentina starring Rudolph Valentino in his very first major film. Valentino plays the grandson of a wealthy patriarch Julio Madariaga. When the family members split and migrate to France and Germany, and very soon they find themselves on opposing sides of the WWI. The real story is the drama of war and casualties it inflicts on nations. It is also a love story of Julio and an unhappily married woman named Marguerite Laurier played by actress Alice Terry. When her husband finds out, he files for a divorce, but the war pitches the family against each other causing significant loss of life and heartache for the surviving members of the family.

Screen writer June Mathis's adaptation of Vicente Blasco Ibáñez's novel, The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse was widely acclaimed as great work, and Metro Studios gave her more rights in the film. She chose Rex Ingram as the director and young Valentino as the lead actor. He was largely introduced as a young "Latin Lover" who would become a matinée idol. The gamble paid off but not for Metro Studios. He quit the studio over a pay dispute and took up with Famous Players-Lasky Studio.

Some aspects of the film were controversial with American film censorship boards. For example, the Pennsylvania board, upon reviewing the affair between Julio and married Marguerite, considered it distasteful and required that Marguerite be described as a fiancée of Etienne Laurier rather than his wife. There were also some scenes where German officers were in drag which did not sit well with many conservative viewers. The movie is a little long but certainly interesting to watch especially for Rudolph Valentino fans.