This Blu-ray Disc edition has been mastered in high-definition from 35mm archival materials held by Box 5 (Paul Killiam collection). The source material originates from an early print with an optical soundtrack, which is why the picture is narrower than usual.

The film is accompanied by a music score composed and performed by The Alloy Orchestra.

Supplementary material includes a filmed introduction of the film by Orson Welles; the documentary short film Valentino: His Life and Times; the short film Valentino at the Beach (aka The Sheik’s Physique); an original theatrical trailer of The Young Rajah (1922); and a gallery of newspaper headlines announcing Valentino’s illness and death.

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Unfortunately, we were unable to make an A-B comparison of this 2002 Image DVD edition to the 2000 Kino DVD edition (see below). However, this Image edition has utilized a very-good black & white 35mm print of the 1937 sound reissue version. (The disc’s booklet notes that a few shots from other prints have been inserted.) It is difficult to determine whether the print has been reedited and retitled, and it appears to be identical in continuity to the Paul Killiam print utilized for the Kino edition, but the transfer has been made at sound speed to accomodate its synchronization to the 1930s soundtrack. The faster transfer is not a great problem since the original footage may have been shot at a 20 FPS or higher frame rate, thus much of the movement (with a few exceptions) is close to a natural speed. The print features a broad range of greytones and very good image detail, but the print is moderately speckled, scratched and scuffed. The full-frame transfer is generously cropped, so intertitles and the tops of heads are not a problem. Our memories of the Kino edition lead us to slightly favor the qualities of this new edition.

Featured with The Son of the Sheik is the film that started it all for Valentino, The Sheik (1921). The Sheik DVD review.

Among the supplementary material is Rudolph Valentino and His 88 American Beauties (1923) is documentary produced by the young David O. Selznick during Valentino’s contract dispute with Famous Players-Lasky, and served the purpose of keeping Valentino before the moving-going public during his vaudeville tour. Valentino was a judge in a beauty contest held in New York, with 88 contestants, including future film star Eugenia Gilbert. The film is padded with a hodge podge of footage taken during the event and of the contestants afterwards, but the film served its purpose for Valentino and made Selznick a goodly sum of money at the beginning of his career as a film producer. The transfer has been made from an excellent 35mm print, with mild speckling and moderate frame jitters. The film was previously available as a supplement on laserdisc.

The Sheik’s Physique (192?) is an odd little fiction film of Valentino (complete with long, pointed sideburns) driving to the beach and, to wow female viewers, changing into a swimming suit to spend a leisurely afternoon relaxing. Having fallen asleep, Rudy awakens to discover that he is late for an undefined appointment, realizes that his car is gone, and he must hitch a ride back into town. The film, which is likely exerpted from a longer compilation reel, has little purpose other than to keep new Valentino footage on the world’s cinema screens until he formally returned to film acting. Transferred from, what appears to be, an excellent 35mm print.

[Pathe News: Rudolph Valentino Dead!] (1926) is a portion of newsreel footage of the funeral of Valentino. Includes footage from The Son of the Sheik and an incidental glimpse of Pola Negri. Transferred from an excellent 35mm print that is lightly speckled, moderately jittery and slightly damaged.

All of the films on this Image DVD feature music scores performed on synthesizers by Eric Beheim, who has written extensive notes on the scoring for the insert booklet. The disc also features an alternate music track of the 1937 reissue music and sound effects track for The Son of the Sheik.

This DVD edition of Valentino’s sheik films, produced for home video by David Shepard, encompasses a five-year span during which Rudolph Valentino rose to fame, fought studio control (almost disasterously), successfully returned to films, and ultimately died a premature death at age 31. With its wealth of Valentino films in great prints, this DVD is a great buy for both value and quality.

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As was the case with all home video from Republic Pictures, the transfer’s color tints were oversaturated and required the viewer to turn down color values on their television monitor to achieve a watchable color balance. The Republic edition’s soundtrack was full of audio crackles. These presentation defects largely have been corrected and improved in this Kino edition. The saturation of the color toning in the Kino edition is appropriately subdued and features different toning choices than the Republic edition. Picture image highlights are not blasted out, and the image framing is cropped higher and more open — although it leaves the impression that it could have been even more generously cropped. For example, the cropping does cut off a character’s head at 41:37.

The music soundtrack does reveal the age of the original recording. Occasional audio distortion as the organ overloads either the original recording system or (more likely) the rerecording to the film print’s optical soundtrack, but it is far cleaner and does not leak and randomly crackle in active surround channels like the Republic edition. In addition, the soundtrack on the DVD drops out a couple of times and is flawed by an audio thump at 40:47.

The 35mm source material shows minor print damage, with minor scuffing and some speckling that does distract the viewer from time to time. The print’s main titles are from a sound rerelease of the film (probably indicating the original print source). Overall, however, the print is in good to very-good condition.

While this edition was an improvement over previous home video editions of The Son of the Sheik, we slightly favor the newer Image edition (see above) for its open framing and cleaner stereo music score.

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The film is likely accompanied by a soundtrack of preexisting recordings.

Over the years, this company has released DVD-R editions under a number of company names, with the same catalog number and UPC number, including Nostalgia Family Video (as originally noted), Hollywood’s Attic, RetroFlix, and (as of 2015) Reel Vault.

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The film is likely accompanied by a soundtrack compiled from preexisting music sources.

Probably not a great presentation.

This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is available directly from . . .