# Valentino (1977 film)
**Valentino** is a 1977 biographical drama directed by [Ken Russell](https://www.edgepedia.org/ken-russell) about the silent film star [Rudolph Valentino](https://www.edgepedia.org/rudolph-valentino), with the Russian ballet dancer [Rudolf Nureyev](https://www.edgepedia.org/rudolf-nureyev) in the title role in his debut in a theatrically released American feature film. Produced by Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff for United Artists, it follows Valentino from his arrival in the United States as a poor Italian immigrant to his rise as one of the silent era's most prominent stars, told through flashbacks from his riotous 1926 funeral, and it centers on the rumors about his sexuality that followed him through his career.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/67650-VALENTINO) • [2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1045835-1045835-valentino) • [3](https://www.deepfocusreview.com/reviews/valentino/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director and writers | Ken Russell; screenplay by Russell and Mardik Martin, based on the book *Valentino, an Intimate Exposé of The Sheik* by Brad Steiger and Chaw Mank[4](https://www.tcm.com/articles/253020/valentino-1977) |
| Cast | Rudolf Nureyev (Rudolph Valentino), Leslie Caron (Alla Nazimova), Michelle Phillips (Natasha Rambova), Felicity Kendal (June Mathis), Seymour Cassel, Carol Kane, Anthony Dowell (Vaslav Nijinsky)[4](https://www.tcm.com/articles/253020/valentino-1977) |
| Release | United States release dated July 1977 by the Rudolf Nureyev Foundation and 5 October 1977 by the AFI Catalog; UK release followed three months after the US[5](https://nureyev.org/discover-nureyev/the-nureyev-database/performances/valentino/) • [1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/67650-VALENTINO) |
| Runtime and rating | 127 minutes, rated R, filmed in Panavision and color[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/67650-VALENTINO) |
| Production | Principal photography began 16 August 1976 in Spain, one week shy of the fiftieth anniversary of Valentino's death on 23 August 1926; interiors at Elstree Studios, England[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/67650-VALENTINO) |
| Commercial result | Lost almost its entire $5 million investment[4](https://www.tcm.com/articles/253020/valentino-1977) |
| Critical standing | 46% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer from 13 reviews; 40% Popcornmeter[2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1045835-1045835-valentino) |
## Spoilers
### Story and structure
The film opens at Valentino's funeral in New York in 1926, where thousands of fans riot outside the funeral home and Hollywood executives stand over the coffin planning to profit from his posthumous popularity.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/67650-VALENTINO) As visitors approach the coffin, the film moves into flashbacks arranged in chronological order, covering his early years in America, his work as a New York gigolo, his move to California, and his rise to stardom helped by the actresses he became involved with.[3](https://www.deepfocusreview.com/reviews/valentino/) • [2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1045835-1045835-valentino) One early episode has Valentino dancing the tango with the ballet dancer [Vaslav Nijinsky](https://www.edgepedia.org/vaslav-nijinsky) at a ballroom.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/67650-VALENTINO)
Russell's stated interest is less Valentino's celebrity than his lifelong struggle with image and sexuality: the film depicts the rumors that he was gay, a running motif in which a pink makeup applicator is thrown in his face, and it ends with the real-life 1926 boxing match in which Valentino fought a reporter who accused him of turning American men into effeminates, a match Valentino won. Russell resituates the fight as the final night of Valentino's life.[3](https://www.deepfocusreview.com/reviews/valentino/)
## Casting and production
Russell had built his career on biographies of artists, moving from BBC films such as *Elgar* (1964) to increasingly extreme theatrical features including *[The Music Lovers](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-music-lovers)* (1970), *Mahler* (1974), and *Lisztomania* (1975).[4](https://www.tcm.com/articles/253020/valentino-1977) In 1975 he sent Nureyev a script and initially offered him the role of Nijinsky, who reputedly taught Valentino the tango; soon afterward he proposed Nureyev for the lead. The casting was proposed by Shirley Russell, the director's wife and costume designer, who saw parallels between the two men: each had started out poor, departed his native country, and performed in art forms relying on physical movement rather than the spoken word.[5](https://nureyev.org/discover-nureyev/the-nureyev-database/performances/valentino/) • [4](https://www.tcm.com/articles/253020/valentino-1977) Russell had also considered [David Bowie](https://www.edgepedia.org/david-bowie), Jack Nicholson, and [Warren Beatty](https://www.edgepedia.org/warren-beatty) for the part.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/67650-VALENTINO)
Nureyev accepted partly to force a rest from his relentless dancing schedule, and partly out of interest in how Valentino used minimal movement to carry emotion.[5](https://nureyev.org/discover-nureyev/the-nureyev-database/performances/valentino/) The break proved illusory: he used his lunch hour for warm-ups and, once shooting moved to London, spent his evenings rehearsing and performing.[4](https://www.tcm.com/articles/253020/valentino-1977)
**On-set friction.** Nureyev, despite extensive dialect coaching, never managed to transform his Russian accent into Valentino's Italian-accented speech, and he complained that much of his dialogue was unspeakable and that Russell, a visual director he admired, had little skill at directing actors. Russell countered that the coaching left the dancer with wooden line readings.[4](https://www.tcm.com/articles/253020/valentino-1977) Relations with [Michelle Phillips](https://www.edgepedia.org/michelle-phillips), the former singer of The Mamas and the Papas cast as Valentino's second wife Natasha Rambova, were worse: at their first meeting Nureyev told her he had no interest in women, and one of their love scenes ended in a slapping match. Phillips later called him the worst working relationship she had ever experienced.[4](https://www.tcm.com/articles/253020/valentino-1977) [Leslie Caron](https://www.edgepedia.org/leslie-caron), by contrast, formed a lifelong friendship with Nureyev and welcomed the flamboyant, heavily stylized performance Russell wanted from her as [Alla Nazimova](https://www.edgepedia.org/alla-nazimova).[4](https://www.tcm.com/articles/253020/valentino-1977)
After filming, producers Winkler and Chartoff made unauthorized edits before the American preview screening, provoking Russell to claim his contractual right to "three cuts and three previews" had been violated; the edited prison scenes were largely restored by compromise.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/67650-VALENTINO)
## Fiction and its consequences
Russell added numerous incidents to Valentino's life, including his fleeing New York to escape gangsters, feuding with the silent clown Fatty Arbuckle, and the boxing match with the reporter. TCM's account notes that some of these fictions have since been regarded as fact because of the film.[4](https://www.tcm.com/articles/253020/valentino-1977) The film also drew criticism for its treatment of the real women in Valentino's circle: it ignored Nazimova's artistic accomplishments, which included introducing Constantin Stanislavsky's acting techniques to American audiences, to focus on her lesbianism, and it reduced Rambova, a significant contributor to set, fashion, and interior design, to a schemer exploiting Valentino's stardom.[4](https://www.tcm.com/articles/253020/valentino-1977)
## Reception
The film opened with gala premieres in London and New York, and the reviews were largely negative, with the historical inaccuracies among the chief complaints.[4](https://www.tcm.com/articles/253020/valentino-1977) • [5](https://nureyev.org/discover-nureyev/the-nureyev-database/performances/valentino/) The critic [Pauline Kael](https://www.edgepedia.org/pauline-kael), film critic for [The New Yorker](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-new-yorker), led the attack: "There is no artistry left in Ken Russell's work. By now, his sensationalist reputation is based merely on his 'going further' than anybody else....His films have become schoolboy Black Masses -- a mixture of offensiveness and crude dumbness."[4](https://www.tcm.com/articles/253020/valentino-1977) Kael and the dance critic Arlene Croce both thought Nureyev showed potential as a film star, but most critics thought his debut had been upstaged by Russell's direction.[4](https://www.tcm.com/articles/253020/valentino-1977) Time Out judged the first hour Russell's sanest and most controlled work in several years before the film degenerated into typical Russell hyperboles, with Nureyev's acting "hopelessly under-directed".[6](https://www.timeout.com/movies/valentino) The U.S. Catholic Conference gave the film a "condemned" rating as morally objectionable in November 1977.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/67650-VALENTINO)
**Commercial failure.** *Valentino* lost almost its entire $5 million investment and nearly ended Russell's career, sending him back to television for three years until *Altered States* (1980). In later years Russell accepted most of the blame, reportedly walking out of a revival screening saying, "What idiot made this?" The film also ended Nureyev's hopes of a film career, though his biographers noted the break from dancing may have paid off in stronger stage performances afterward.[4](https://www.tcm.com/articles/253020/valentino-1977)
## Later assessment
Retrospective criticism has been more divided. Brian Eggert of Deep Focus Review rates the film 3.5 of 4 stars, arguing that Russell's favoring of sensationalism over accuracy serves a portrait of a man trying to justify himself to his public, and that the casting of Nureyev, whose own sexuality was questioned and mocked in his lifetime, gives the film off-screen parallels that read more tenderly after Nureyev's death from complications with AIDS in 1993.[3](https://www.deepfocusreview.com/reviews/valentino/) A 2023 [Cambridge University Press](https://www.edgepedia.org/cambridge-university-press) book chapter on Russell's film situates it as rooted in his preoccupation with early silent cinema and in his aborted Nijinsky project from 1967, forty-one years after Valentino's death at the age of thirty-one.[7](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/refocus-the-films-of-ken-russell/mythologising-valentino-stardom-biography-and-performance-in-ken-russells-valentino/B72D6075ACB8B863591C24357178F498) On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 46% Tomatometer from 13 critics and a 40% audience score.[2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1045835-1045835-valentino)
## References
1. [Valentino (1977), AFI Catalog](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/67650-VALENTINO)
2. [Valentino, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1045835-1045835-valentino)
3. [Valentino (1977) | Movie Review, Deep Focus Review (Brian Eggert)](https://www.deepfocusreview.com/reviews/valentino/)
4. [Valentino (1977), Turner Classic Movies article by Frank Miller](https://www.tcm.com/articles/253020/valentino-1977)
5. [Valentino, The Nureyev Database, Rudolf Nureyev Foundation](https://nureyev.org/discover-nureyev/the-nureyev-database/performances/valentino/)
6. [Valentino 1977, directed by Ken Russell, Time Out](https://www.timeout.com/movies/valentino)
7. [Jade Evans, "Mythologising Valentino: Stardom, Biography and Performance in Ken Russell's Valentino," in ReFocus: The Films of Ken Russell, Cambridge University Press, 2023](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/refocus-the-films-of-ken-russell/mythologising-valentino-stardom-biography-and-performance-in-ken-russells-valentino/B72D6075ACB8B863591C24357178F498)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 1970s › Released 1975 to 1979*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license