''The White Sheik'' ( it, Lo sceicco bianco) is a 1952 Italian
romantic comedy
Romantic comedy (also known as romcom or rom-com) is a subgenre of comedy and slice of life fiction, focusing on lighthearted, humorous plot lines centered on romantic ideas, such as how true love is able to surmount most obstacles. In a typica ...
film directed by
Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini (; 20 January 1920 – 31 October 1993) was an Italian film director and screenwriter known for his distinctive style, which blends fantasy and baroque images with earthiness. He is recognized as one of the greatest and most i ...
and starring
Alberto Sordi
Alberto Sordi (15 June 1920 – 24 February 2003) was an Italian actor, voice actor, singer, comedian, director and screenwriter.
Early life
Born in Rome to a schoolteacher and a musician and the last of five children, Sordi was named in hon ...
,
Leopoldo Trieste
Leopoldo Trieste (3 May 1917 – 25 January 2003) was an Italian actor, film director and script writer.
Trieste was born in Reggio Calabria. He worked with directors such as Pietro Germi, Francis Ford Coppola, Giuseppe Tornatore, Mario Bava, ...
,
Brunella Bovo
Brunella Bovo (4 March 1932 – 21 February 2017) was an Italian film actress.
Life and career
Born in Padua, Italy, after having had her film debut with a minor role in ''Ho sognato il paradiso'' and after having not been admitted to the Cent ...
and
Giulietta Masina
Giulia Anna "Giulietta" Masina (22 February 1921 – 23 March 1994) was an Italian film actress best known for her performances as Gelsomina in ''La Strada'' (1954) and Cabiria in ''Nights of Cabiria'' (1957), for which she won the Cannes Film F ...
. Written by Fellini,
Tullio Pinelli
Tullio Pinelli (24 June 1908 – 7 March 2009) was an Italian screenwriter known for his work on the Federico Fellini films ''I Vitelloni'', ''La Strada'', '' La Dolce Vita'' and '' 8½''.
Biography
Born in Turin, Piedmont, Italy, Pinelli beg ...
,
Ennio Flaiano
Ennio Flaiano (5 March 1910 – 20 November 1972) was an Italian screenwriter, playwright, novelist, journalist, and drama critic. Best known for his work with Federico Fellini, Flaiano co-wrote ten screenplays with the Italian director, including ...
and
Michelangelo Antonioni, the film is about a man who brings his new bride to
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
for their honeymoon, to have an audience with the
Pope
The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...
, and to present his wife to his family. When the young woman sneaks away to find the hero of her romance novels, the man is forced to spend hour after hour making excuses to his eager family who want to meet his missing bride.
''The White Sheik'' was filmed on location in
Fregene
Fregenae ( el, ; it, Fregene), was a maritime town of ancient Etruria, situated between Alsium and the mouth of the Tiber. The modern Fregene is an Italian hamlet (''frazione'') of Fiumicino, in the Metropolitan City of Rome, Lazio. As of 2012 i ...
, Rome,
Spoleto
Spoleto (, also , , ; la, Spoletum) is an ancient city in the Italian province of Perugia in east-central Umbria on a foothill of the Apennines. It is S. of Trevi, N. of Terni, SE of Perugia; SE of Florence; and N of Rome.
History
Spolet ...
and
Vatican City
Vatican City (), officially the Vatican City State ( it, Stato della Città del Vaticano; la, Status Civitatis Vaticanae),—'
* german: Vatikanstadt, cf. '—' (in Austria: ')
* pl, Miasto Watykańskie, cf. '—'
* pt, Cidade do Vati ...
.
Plot
Two young newlyweds from a provincial town, Wanda (Brunella Bovo) and Ivan Cavalli (
Leopoldo Trieste
Leopoldo Trieste (3 May 1917 – 25 January 2003) was an Italian actor, film director and script writer.
Trieste was born in Reggio Calabria. He worked with directors such as Pietro Germi, Francis Ford Coppola, Giuseppe Tornatore, Mario Bava, ...
), arrive in
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
for their
honeymoon
A honeymoon is a vacation taken by newlyweds immediately after their wedding, to celebrate their marriage. Today, honeymoons are often celebrated in destinations considered exotic or romantic. In a similar context, it may also refer to the phase ...
. Wanda is obsessed with the "White Sheik" (
Alberto Sordi
Alberto Sordi (15 June 1920 – 24 February 2003) was an Italian actor, voice actor, singer, comedian, director and screenwriter.
Early life
Born in Rome to a schoolteacher and a musician and the last of five children, Sordi was named in hon ...
), the
Rudolph Valentino
Rodolfo Pietro Filiberto Raffaello Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antonguolla (May 6, 1895 – August 23, 1926), known professionally as Rudolph Valentino and nicknamed The Latin Lover, was an Italian actor based in the United States who starred ...
-like hero of a
soap opera
A soap opera, or ''soap'' for short, is a typically long-running radio or television serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored ...
photo strip
Photo comics are a form of sequential storytelling that uses photographs rather than illustrations for the images, along with the usual comics conventions of narrative text and word balloons containing dialogue. They are sometimes referred to ...
and sneaks off to find him, leaving her conventional,
petit bourgeois husband in a quandary as he tries to hide his wife's disappearance from his strait-laced relatives who are waiting to go with them to visit the Pope.
Cast
*
Alberto Sordi
Alberto Sordi (15 June 1920 – 24 February 2003) was an Italian actor, voice actor, singer, comedian, director and screenwriter.
Early life
Born in Rome to a schoolteacher and a musician and the last of five children, Sordi was named in hon ...
as Fernando Rivoli, The White Sheik
*
Leopoldo Trieste
Leopoldo Trieste (3 May 1917 – 25 January 2003) was an Italian actor, film director and script writer.
Trieste was born in Reggio Calabria. He worked with directors such as Pietro Germi, Francis Ford Coppola, Giuseppe Tornatore, Mario Bava, ...
as Ivan Cavalli
*
Brunella Bovo
Brunella Bovo (4 March 1932 – 21 February 2017) was an Italian film actress.
Life and career
Born in Padua, Italy, after having had her film debut with a minor role in ''Ho sognato il paradiso'' and after having not been admitted to the Cent ...
as Wanda Giardino Cavalli
*
Giulietta Masina
Giulia Anna "Giulietta" Masina (22 February 1921 – 23 March 1994) was an Italian film actress best known for her performances as Gelsomina in ''La Strada'' (1954) and Cabiria in ''Nights of Cabiria'' (1957), for which she won the Cannes Film F ...
as Cabiria, the prostitute
*
Lilia Landi
Lilia Landi (born 24 August 1929) is a retired Italian film actress.Burke p.381
Selected filmography
* ''My Beautiful Daughter'' (1950)
* ''Turri il bandito'' (1950)
* '' Era lui... sì! sì!'' (1951)
* ''Licenza premio'' (1951)
* ''Destiny'' (1 ...
as Felga, the photonovel's gipsy
*
Ernesto Almirante
Ernesto Almirante (24 September 1877 – 13 December 1964) was an Italian film and stage actor.
Life and career
Born in Mistretta into a family of actors, Almirante worked several years on stage along his father Nunzio. He was also active as ag ...
as Dottore Fortuna, the photonovel's director
*
Fanny Marchiò
Fanny Marchiò (1904–1980) was an Italian stage, film and television actress.Goble p.34 She was born in Corfu to an Italian family, her parents were both actors.
She was married to Renato Navarrini.
Selected filmography
* '' The Lady in Whit ...
as Marilena Alba Vellardi
*
Gina Mascetti
Gina Mascetti (1911-1995) was an Italian film actress. A character actress, she appeared in a number of comedy films notably as Alberto Sordi's wife in the ''The White Sheik'' (1952). The same year she also featured in the neorealist drama ''Two ...
as Aida Rivoli, the wife of Fernando
* Ugo Attanasio as Uncle of Ivan
Production
''The White Sheik'' was Fellini's first solo effort as a director. He had previously co-directed ''
Variety Lights
''Variety Lights'' ( it, Luci del varietà) is a 1951 Italian romantic drama film produced, directed and written by Federico Fellini and Alberto Lattuada and starring Peppino De Filippo, Carla Del Poggio, and Giulietta Masina. The film is about a ...
'' in 1950 with
Alberto Lattuada
Alberto Lattuada (; 13 November 1914 – 3 July 2005) was an Italian film director.
Career
Lattuada was born in Vaprio d'Adda, the son of composer Felice Lattuada. He was initially interested in literature, becoming, while still a student, a mem ...
.
Originally the treatment for ''The White Sheik'' was written by
Michelangelo Antonioni.
Carlo Ponti
Carlo Fortunato Pietro Ponti Sr. (11 December 1912 – 9 January 2007) was an Italian film producer with more than 140 productions to his credit. Along with Dino De Laurentiis, he is credited with reinvigorating and popularizing Italian cinema ...
commissioned Fellini and Tullio Pinelli to develop the treatment. It was satirical in nature, targeting the trashy fotoromanzi comic strips that were extremely popular in Italy when the film was made.
The male lead,
Leopoldo Trieste
Leopoldo Trieste (3 May 1917 – 25 January 2003) was an Italian actor, film director and script writer.
Trieste was born in Reggio Calabria. He worked with directors such as Pietro Germi, Francis Ford Coppola, Giuseppe Tornatore, Mario Bava, ...
, a playwright who did not consider himself an actor, reluctantly auditioned for Fellini. During the audition Fellini asked him to compose a sonnet that the lead character would have written to his wife. The poem which begins "She is graceful, sweet and teeny..." was included in the film.
Appearing briefly as the prostitute Cabiria,
Giulietta Masina
Giulia Anna "Giulietta" Masina (22 February 1921 – 23 March 1994) was an Italian film actress best known for her performances as Gelsomina in ''La Strada'' (1954) and Cabiria in ''Nights of Cabiria'' (1957), for which she won the Cannes Film F ...
would later return to this role in ''
Nights of Cabiria
''Nights of Cabiria'' ( it, Le notti di Cabiria) is a 1957 drama film co-written and directed by Federico Fellini. It stars Giulietta Masina as Cabiria, a prostitute living in Rome. The cast also features François Périer and Amedeo Nazzari. ...
''. Her short scene inspired Fellini to write the screenplay and also convinced producers that Giulietta was ready for the leading role.
Reception
Italian film critic Giulio Cesare Castello, writing for ''Cinema V'', argued that Fellini's past as a successful strip cartoonist made him a natural choice as the film's director: "Fellini was undoubtedly the best qualified and for two reasons: firstly, his experience as a strip cartoonist and consequently his familiarity with the secrets and intrigues of the world he was about to bring to the screen; secondly, his gift for sarcastic comment and delight in satirizing tradition... The result is unusual and stimulating but derives more from the failure to establish a basic mood or tone rather than from any direct intention. Fellini should find this tone in future works if he is to avoid the discontinuity we found here."
[Castello's review first published in ''Cinema V'' (Milan) December 15, 1952. Cited in Claudio Fava and Aldo Vigano, ''The Films of Federico Fellini'', New York: Citadel Press (1985), p. 65.]
Soundtrack
Nino Rota
Giovanni Rota Rinaldi (; 3 December 1911 – 10 April 1979), better known as Nino Rota (), was an Italian composer, pianist, conductor and academic who is best known for his film scores, notably for the films of Federico Fellini and Luchino Visco ...
scored the film.
References
Further reading
* Aristarco, Guido. ''Lo sceicco bianco'', in: "Cinema Nuovo", n° 1, Novembre 1952.
* Burke, Frank M. "''Variety Lights'', ''The White Sheik'', and Italian Neorealism". In ''Film Criticism'', Winter 1978, Volume 3, no. 2, p. 53-66.
External links
*
''The White Sheik''an essay by
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Jonathan Rosenbaum (born February 27, 1943) is an American film critic and author. Rosenbaum was the head film critic for ''The Chicago Reader'' from 1987 to 2008, when he retired. He has published and edited numerous books about cinema and has ...
at the
Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cinep ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:White Sheik, The
Films directed by Federico Fellini
1950s Italian-language films
Films scored by Nino Rota
Italian black-and-white films
1952 films
Films set in Rome
Films shot in Rome
Films with screenplays by Federico Fellini
Films about comics
1950s romantic comedy-drama films
Italian romantic comedy-drama films
1950s Italian films