home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
TIME: Almanac of the 20th Century
/
TIME, Almanac of the 20th Century.ISO
/
1920
/
20beauca
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1994-02-27
|
2KB
|
43 lines
<text>
<title>
(1920s) Monsieur Beaucaire
</title>
<history>
TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1920s Highlights
Cinema
</history>
<article>
<source>Time Magazine</source>
<hdr>
Monsieur Beaucaire
</hdr>
<body>
<p>(AUGUST 18, 1924)
</p>
<p> Monsieur Beaucaire. There has been a general proposition
floating around for a long time that you cannot argue with a
woman. There is a fact quite absolute that you cannot argue with
a woman about Rudolph Valentino. He is beautiful, and he harrows
the heart. Since women compose the vast majority of cinema
customers, criticism of Rudolph seems futile business.
</p>
<p> Rudolph returns to the screen in a generally excellent
version of Booth Tarkington's romantic tale of France and
England in the days of Louis XV. How he impersonated the
ambassador's barber; was thrown out of polite society; regained
his introduction by detecting an English duke with an ace in his
sleeve; was betrayed, and won the great duel, is familiar
fiction.
</p>
<p> It seems the producers were worried lest the public might
think Rudolph's vitality had been vitiated by his having been
so long buried in beauty clay. Therefore they stripped him to
the waist for several minutes and let him play Lionel
Strongfort. Also, they let him go on talking out of the side of
his mouth for masculine effect. Otherwise he was sane, suave,
and at moments scintillating.</p>
</body>
</article>
</text>