- The White Sheik
Infobox_Film
name=The White Sheik
caption= Italian release poster deletable image-caption
image_size=150px
director=Federico Fellini
writer=Michelangelo Antonioni Federico Fellini Ennio Flaiano Tullio Pinelli
starring=Alberto Sordi Brunella Bovo Leopoldo Trieste Giulietta Masina Lilia Landi
producer=Luigi Rovere
production company=American International Pictures
released=flagicon|Italy6 September ,1952 (premiere at VFF)
flagicon|ItalySeptember 20 ,1952
flagicon|USA25 April ,1956
runtime=83 mins
language=Italian
gb budget=
imdb_id=0044000"The White Sheik" ( _it. Lo sceicco bianco) is a 1952 film by
Federico Fellini starringLeopoldo Trieste ,Alberto Sordi , and Brunella Bovo.Plot
Two young newlyweds from a provincial town, Wanda (Brunella Bovo) and Ivan Cavalli (
Leopoldo Trieste ), arrive inRome for theirhoneymoon . Wanda is obsessed with the "White Sheik" (Alberto Sordi ), the hero of asoap opera photo strip and sneaks off to find him, leaving her conventional,petit bourgeois husband in hysterics 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.Production history
"The White Sheik" was Fellini's first solo effort as a director. He had previously co-directed
Variety Lights in 1950 withAlberto Lattuada .Originally the treatment for "The White Sheik" was written by
Michelangelo Antonioni .Carlo Ponti 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.Fact|date=September 2008The male lead,
Leopoldo Trieste , 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.Fact|date=September 2008Appearing briefly as the prostitute Cabiria,
Giulietta Masina would later return to this role in "Nights of Cabiria ". Her short scene inspired Fellini to write the screenplay and also convinced producers that Guilietta was ready for the leading role.Fact|date=September 2008Critical reception
Italian film critic Giulio Cesare Castello, writing for "Cinema V", argued that Fellini's past as a successful gag writer 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 gag writer and consequently his familiarity wth 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 scored the film.Notes and references
External links
*imdb title|id=0044000|title=The White Sheik
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