User reviews

This was the first film Fellini directed on his own and it was among his best but most under-appreciated films. While it does not have the usual "Fellini look" (with odd looking supporting characters, unusual stories or unique style), the film is a definite winner--featuring a very cute story and some winning performances. Plus, like most of Fellini's films, the plot is pretty weird--and that I truly appreciate.

A young man and woman are married and come to Rome for their honeymoon. The very organized husband seems to have planned every last detail of the trip--scheduling almost every second of every day and allowing them no time alone or to even consummate their marriage. Instead of trying to get this seemingly inflexible man to bend, the young bride hopes to just slip away from the hotel VERY briefly to go meet her idol, the "White Sheik". Unbeknownst to the hubby, she is an avid reader of an adventure magazine that feature this fictional character--complete with photos and stories about his larger than life adventures and romance. And, she'd been writing him for some time and her only real desire in Rome was to spend just a brief moment with him. However, when she arrives at the office that publishes the magazine, the actor portraying him in the stories isn't there. But, the folks see she's a real fan and want to help her, so they tell her to get in the truck and go with the camera crew to the shoot. She only has a moment, but agrees--after all, he is her idol.

Well, one thing after another goes wrong and her brief excursion lasts more than a day! In the meantime, the new husband is panic-stricken but doesn't want to tell his uncle or his family--he's too embarrassed to tell them he's misplaced his wife! And, for the next day or so, he makes one excuse after another to explain why she isn't there to go on their fully packed itinerary! The story is very cute and charming,...plus it provides a few laughs. In many ways, it reminds me of the later film THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO (where Mia Farrow is a devoted fan of a movie serial star and sees the same film again and again), but it is both more charming and ultimately has a better and more upbeat ending.

PS--I know this may make me sound like I am not "with it", but I really do prefer most of Fellini's earlier films and hate the "über strange" films from later in his career (such as SATYRICON). This is a wonderful film that is sure to please everyone--even those who don't think they like the films of Fellini.

A classic Fellini comedy, with all the atmosphere of a carnival that fans expect. Brunella Bovo is lovely, naive, well-meaning, but lead astray by a philandering playboy. Meanwhile, her new husband seems doomed to appear utterly insane to his family who has come to Rome to meet his blushing bride--suddenly disappeared. Charming, funny, what's not to love? Oh, and Guilietta Masina arrives in her role as the kind and sensual Cabiria--icing on the cake! While certainly not the greatest Fellini film on record, it makes for pleasant viewing. Yes, the behavior of the characters is hardly exemplary, but then, would that be entertaining?

...that Federico Fellini, one of the most gifted and visually wild Italian directors of the 20th century, blossomed out until with his masterpiece 8 1/2 (which, by the time he got to, as Martin Scorsese once said, "he was on Mars"). With his first solo effort, parting ways with Rossellini but not entirely from neo-realism, he went back to one of his passions- comic-book writing. Los Sciecco Bianco (The White Shiek) is likely one of Fellini's funniest works, and it shows him gearing up his visual sense of space, and with his trademark characters (set, which is his usual, in Rome).

The story is quite simple and, for the novice to Fellini's daring feats of the 60's, entertaining and accessible. A man with a level of pride in his family's connections in bureaucracy and religion in Rome (played by Leopoldo Triste, with perfect usage of wide eyes), is married to a young woman, Wanda (Brunella Bovo). She loves him, but finds him perhaps a little un-easy to be around for a day. So, she sneaks off for what she thinks is just a momentary call for fandom- she's a big fan of 'the white sheik', the star of the kinds of comics being printed in Italy (mostly for women, as said on the DVD, they were still photos as opposed to drawings, with pulp/love stories). But, in a Fellinian twist, Wanda gets whisked away by the shooting crew of the series, and Ivan (Triste) is stuck in one of those text-book comic situations, where everything is "under control". The results are rather funny, if also intriguing.

The little characters are also what makes the film fun, aside from our lead couple, and with this film we get the white sheik himself, Fernando Rivoli (Alberto Sordi, who finds that line between a stealthily romantic type and hopelessly dim), and the crew, filled with their little comments. Plus, there is a late-night visit to Ivan in a despairing state, from Cabiria (later to appear in one of Masina/Fellini's best combinations, Nights of Cabiria), involving a flame shooter. And as the film unravels, it becomes key to the fun- we know things will turn out right somehow, but how is what makes the film work (unlike Fellini, some might think, as many of his other films are the opposite, with flights of fantastical comedy in hopeless tragedies). It's not a great film, there are some inconsistencies, and at a couple of points the pace loses its strength. But if this was a place to evolve from for the director, it's not a bad place in the slightest. That there are wonderful turns for Trieste, Bovo, Marchio, and legendary composer Nina Rota, is another reason to watch it.

Two young newlyweds from a provincial town, Wanda (Brunella Bovo) and Ivan Cavalli (Leopoldo Trieste), arrive in Rome for their honeymoon. Wanda is obsessed with the "White Sheik" (Alberto Sordi), the Rudolph Valentino-like hero of a soap 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.

"The White Sheik" was Fellini's first solo effort as a director. He had previously co-directed "Variety Lights" in 1950 with Alberto Lattuada. Of course, we know now that Fellini went on to be one of the world's biggest directors and Lattuada is forgotten. And this is a solid effort, both fun and funny. Some have compared it to Chaplin, which is an exaggeration, there's definitely a promising career showcased here.

The plot line was re-used by Woody Allen in his film "To Rome with Love", not one of his bigger films. But it is always nice to see Allen pay tribute to his heroes, Fellini and Bergman.

"Our real lives are in our dreams, but sometimes dreams are a fatal abyss."

That line above is one of the most beautiful lines I've ever heard in any film. This 1951 comedy feature is free of Fellini's quintessential surrealist vision but filled with the delights of idiosyncratic imagery, genius comical precision, and indisputable humanity.

The film opens in Rome, where a newlywed small-town couple is vacationing on their honeymoon. While in Rome, the (very) young bride takes advantage of being near the location where a new film is being shot that stars The White Sheik, a popular film/serial/newspaper icon whom she is secretly infatuated with. While her husband is sleeping, she sneaks off to find the Sheik and give him a drawing she has made of him. Brunella Bovo, who plays the bride, is new to me, but she was absolutely entrancing in her innocence. Trieste's comic expressions are absolutely arresting. Sordi is hilarious as the Sheik, who is about as unromantic a romantic figure as you can imagine.

Nino Rota's first score for Fellini is a lot of fun and exceptionally carnivalesque. You can tell by the marriage of music and image that Fellini and Rota had a real treasured creative hit-off with this film, and as most know, Rota scored every Fellini film after "White Sheik" until his death in 1979. This great score has never been released in it's entirety, but the main title theme has appeared on many Rota compilations.

An absolutely adorable little film, which seems to have been regrettably ignored by the majority. It's one I will watch many times.

The first solo effort of Fellini allowed to me to correct a misconception: no, he didn't start with neo-realism for his "White Sheikh". However it is possible that the film's poor reception inclined him toward the neo-realistic wave and meet success with "I Vitelloni", "Il Bidone", "La Strada" and naturally "Nights of Cabiria". So, Fellini took time to mature his work and master his craft before getting back to that "art of unpredictability" you can see budding in his 1952 debut.

So I was wondering who "The White Sheikh" was but quickly figured the right question should begin with 'what'? It is a concept, the incarnation of an artistic phenomenon that struck post-war Italy: soap opera photo strip or as the French call it: "roman-photo". These 'fotoromanzi' made of still photographs of characters with bubbles added afterwards had plunged the targeted young ragazze into dreams of escapism full of dashing cavaliers, dark and brooding strangers or exotic princes, they found in these stories much needed loopholes in a country dominated by religion and patriarchy.

And while the script was co-written by Michaelangelo Antonioni and Tunio Pinnelli, there are reasons why Fellini was the right man for the right project. He started as a a cartoonist drawing and writing funny pictures to the American GIs, he commented on the juicy business it was giving him his first taste of success as inebriated soldiers would by anything at any price. And more than anyone, he knew the double appeal of images: they related to people and their stillness and differences one vignette from another could let imagination fill the blanks. And we know the value of imagination in the Maestro's work.

And it so happens that this world fascinates Wanda (Brunella Bovo) a young and timid newlywed girl who'd just arrived in Rome with Ivan, played by wide-eyed Leopoldo Trieste. Ivan planned the whole weekend in a tight schedule that includes meeting the family, eating in a fancy restaurant, fulfilling the 'honeymoon' duty, having some rest and last but not least: meeting the Pope on Sunday. Ivan is a man of order -more out of necessity than principles- but something in Wanda's apparent passiveness betrays some burning passion, she's like a frail trophy wife whose mind is so distracted she lets Ivan take full reins.

But when she learns that the street where her favorite magazine is printed is ten minutes away from the hotel, she seizes the opportunity of a bath to leave Ivan. Hot water floods the hotel, Ivan discovers the note Wanda got from her "White Sheikh" idol and well, confusion ensues. Basically, there are two journeys in the film: Wanda discovering the backstage of her dreams, and Ivan who tries desperately, pathetically and frantically to keep up the appearances to a petit bourgeois family, eager to discover the new wife and who wouldn't have the honor their name tarnished. The battle seems obvious between exhilarating dreams and oppressive realities, but don't expect Fellini to take the easy side.

"Dreams is the real reality" says the editor (Fanny Marchio) to an ecstatic Wanda who's invited to join the cast for next "White Sheikh" adventure shooting, a sequence that foreshadows what Fellini's work will always be about form and content-wise: a character who discovers himself and the show-within-the-show. There's a whole sequence made of a succsion of disjointed images, the camera cutting from a camel to the dark villain to a dancing harem captive, to a naked fan, with Nino Rota's score capturing the dizzying effect of creation. It's as if the 'worst' part of being a director was materialized in the fictional director's gesticulations letting Fellini exorcize the stressful nature of his new ordeal and just let the camera roll and see where it goes.

The first part ends with Wanda's smile, infuriating the director because she's supposed to be the damsel-in-distress and maybe that smile echoes Fellini's own satisfaction in shooting what was arguably the film's most difficult sequence. Surprinsingly, everything goes downhill after, with Wanda getting the sourest taste of reality when she realizes the limit of her fandom. It's interesting that Fellini chooses to depict the white sheikh's actor (Alfredo Sordi) as a wannabe Valentino who makes moves to Wanda, takes her to the sea and rhapsodizes about his meaningless marriage only to reveal himself as a wimpy mama's boy devoted to a woman who gives Wanda the b-word.

The mood whiplash is quite abrupt and unexpected and one would take it as Fellini's stance against "commercial art" as a world of frauds and impostors. But there is something in his camera that captures an inner likability within the average types, many cuts on Sordi's face, on ordinary but 'special' faces show how Fellini cares less for the 'leading types' but the average losers, perhaps the closest real-life incarnations of clowns, the very figure that defines his work. That tenderness toward 'sad clowns' comes within an inch of tragedy but ends up with Ivan finally sharing his sincere tears with a prostitute named Cabiria, and played by Giuletta Masina, a role that would convince Fellini to write the part for her.

It's ironic that the man supposed to meet the Pope can finally be himself with a prostitute, a woman of lower status. In comedy like in tragedy, it's always the little people who carry the bigger hearts with Fellini. Ultimately, the director gratifies us with a bittersweet ending, where honor is kept. And yet when the stuffy family moves solemnly to the Pope's palace, and the patriarch says 'faster', their little trotting accompanied with Rota's score proves that the frontier between farce and solemnity can easily be crossed.

The direction seems at times as confused as if Fellini was still the little boy playing with the toy he's always dreamed of having, but his storytelling talent and capability to inject empathy into average people were the batteries that made that little toy work, marking an auspicious beginning to his glorious career.

The protagonist is a stuffy little bureaucrat from a small town arriving for his honeymoon in Rome with his very sheltered (only a bit more than himself) young bride. He has few romantic thoughts on his mind. His main concern is a meeting with his uncle, a minor official at the Vatican, who has arranged an audience with the Pope.

While the jerk is taking a nap, his bride plots a momentary escape to fulfill her one wild fantasy---A meeting with the "White Sheik" a hero of the "frumetti"---a sort of trashy photographic comic book popular in 50s Italy---to whom she has sent red hot fan mail. She learns that the studio is only a few blocks from the hotel and resolves to meet her secret love for just a minute and get back to the hotel in time. Through a comedy of errors she is accidentally "abducted" to a shooting session where she learns to be careful about what she wishes for. Meanwhile, her husband is desperately searching for her and coming up with all kinds of frantic excuses to his family for her absence. I won't describe the movie any further for the benefit of those who wish to see it.

A very effective comedy with plenty of innuendo for adults and even some slapstick and sight gags. Loads of laughs for young and old. A very sweet story that nevertheless contains some of the surrealistic elements of Fellini's later work. If possible, get the subtitled version. The Italian language enhances the comical effect. A real gem.

When most people think of Fellini, they think of his films La Strada or La Dolce Vita and 8 1/2, but the director's vast catalogue of films is worth checking out just to see a genius at work. Fellini's early and little known film, The White Sheik proves to be a cinematic gem that not only hints at the director Fellini would become, but also stands on its own as an achievement.

Part soap opera (read Mexican soaps) and part romantic comedy, The White Sheik leans towards surrealism and comic book camp (over 30 years before Kevin Smith created DOGMA). The premise of the story is that two newly weds, Vanda Giardino (Bruenella Boro) and her husband Ivan Cavelli (Leopoldo Trieste) honeymoon in Rome where Ivan hopes to make a good impression of his relations. Unfortunately for him, his wife sneaks out of the hotel room so that she can meet her comic book hero, The White Sheik (Alberto Sordi.

Shot in black and white, this film is gorgeous and surreal. The actors on the set of The White Sheik come across as gypsy or circus like. They sport tough attitudes and this makes a nice contrast to Vanda's wide-eyed innocence.

The White Sheik is technically Fellini's second film, but the first one in which he did not share directing credits. However, he did share writing credits with Michelangelo Antonioni, Ennio Flaiano and Tullio Pinelli. If you are a fan of La Strada and Nights of Cabiria then you must see this film.

Likable early Fellini told in a sprightly farcical vein, with good-natured jabs against hypocritical family honour, marital disharmony and the hokeyness of pulp kitsch.

The situations are a tad too low-key to work as premium farce, but the humanity and naturalness that are invested in the story and the characters, despite all tendencies to rely on stereotypes, render this pic highly watchable, if not as memorable as later films made by the master director.

And in an age when satire is often equated with a misanthropic attitude it's nice to witness a more empathic way to get one's knuckles rapped.

7 out of 10 pitying prostitutes

This is Federico Fellini's first solo effort, his first film, Variety Lights, having been co-directed by Alberto Lattuada (although it is unmistakably in the style of Fellini's early films). The White Sheik is quite underrated - there's no reason why it should be so much less respected than the other early films, particularly La Strada and Nights of Cabiria, the two most often cited as masterpieces (and I'd agree). I actually like The White Sheik quite a bit better than I Vitelloni, Fellini's next film (Il Bidone is the only one from his early period that I have not yet seen). The White Sheik is quite humorous, perhaps Fellini's funniest (although so many of his films contain a great amount of comedy). No Fellini fan should go without seeing it, because so many of his themes and images are established in it. In fact, no one should miss Variety Lights, either, for the same reason. But The White Sheik, unlike Variety Lights, stands by itself as a great film. 9/10.

This is the light, comic, and Italian version of Eyes Wide Shut, a movie about dreams that ends with a husband and wife waking up and facing each other in the wake of what they learned about themselves. Writing out that comparison makes it sound like Federico Fellini's second feature, and his first solo directing credit, is a heavy slog, but it really is a light and fun little movie that wears its comic sensibilities on its sleeve. The dual journeys are comic misadventures.

The one major thing I think this movie is missing is a true opening scene. The movie begins with the newly married couple, Ivan and Wanda, getting off their train in Rome, but I feel like it should have started in their little Italian town right before they left their house. Wanda could have hidden her little magazine collection of photographed stories that she's obsessed with, providing the audience a clear view in what she's obsessed with that drives her to run away the first chance she gets when her husband falls asleep in their hotel. The type of storytelling she's infatuated with (another type of odd, idiosyncratic medium like the avantspettacoli in Variety Lights) is rather unique and never gets a good showing in this film. Just seeing a single sheet of the staged images around the titular White Sheik's adventures could have provided a grounding to the first act that's currently missing.

That lack of grounding means that the first act feels a little unclear, but once through it, the movie is unambiguous and works fine. So, that first act sees the pair take up residence in their small hotel room where Ivan reveals himself to be a control-freak. He's planned every minute of their trip in Rome including a visit with the Pope, arranged by Ivan's uncle, an official in the Vatican. He's excited about showing off his pretty wife to his family, less so about spending any time with his new bride. She, in contrast, is using their trip to Rome to try and visit Fernando Rivoli, the actor who plays the White Sheik. She travels to the photo-play's production office a few minutes from the hotel and gets swept up into the production itself, riding a truck out of town to a shooting location where she meets Rivoli, swinging from a tree.

The thing about the two stories that we end up following, Wanda descending into the fantasy of The White Sheik and Ivan's nightmare as he tries to explain away his wife's absence to his family, eager to meet the young woman, is that they are mirror images of dreams of each. Wanda goes off to find her dream lover, The White Sheik, and she gets swept up into the dream-like production of her favorite story in her favorite medium. But, the fantasy is really just that, a fantasy. Fernando Rivoli isn't some dashing hero, he's a former butcher's boy with a wife. The adventures aren't real and exciting, they are manufactured and tame. By contrast, Ivan's fantasy is that he has complete control over life and his wife, and the second they get to Rome he loses her completely. He is frantic and desperate to hide his fear from his family, constantly calling back to the hotel to see if they have seen her since she left. He even goes to the police to beg for their help without using his own name, out of fear of the scandal it could cause him and his family. She gains everything she could dream of, and he loses everything.

There are two low points for the main characters. Wanda runs off from the production out in the middle of nowhere when Fernando Rivoli's wife appears and breaks up the fantasy. She hitches a ride back into town, can't bear to return to her husband, and decides to kill herself. Now, that kind of decision is usually not met with a comedic sneer from a filmmaker, but I find it hard to believe that Fellini saw the moment of great decision on Wanda's part as anything other than a satirical moment. The music by Nino Rotta swells, but her fall from the embankment along the Tiber into a shallow place of mud solidifies the feeling that her entire bout of despair was supposed to be darkly comic rather than deeply emotional. Ivan experiences a similar down moment when he sits at a public fountain in the middle of the night and gets visited by two prostitutes (including Cabiria, played by Giulietta Masina, Fellini's wife who would return to the role in Nights of Cabiria a few years later) who give him solace and assure him that not all women are like Wanda, who run off to meet some lover on her own honeymoon. It's a sad moment for the character, but the fact that he's being comforted on his wife's supposed infidelity by two prostitutes is just too darkly comic to be taken seriously, and that's pretty obviously the point.

The two reunite when Wanda gets taken to a hospital after falling into the Tiber and the hospital calls Ivan at his hotel (a moment before he's going to reveal to his family that he lost his wife). Together, the next morning after their long day apart (where Ivan told his family that Wanda was asleep, furthering the idea of dreams), they're both rather shellshocked at what they lived through. It was here, as the two can barely look at each other while Wanda gets introduced to Ivan's family outside St. Peters Basilica, that I recalled Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman at the end of Eyes Wide Shut. There's a very similar feeling of self-reflection as the two sets of dreams end and the real world seeps back into their lives. Ivan has to realize how easily he could lose Wanda if he loses sight of her, like he did the day before, and Wanda has to realize that love isn't like the fake romances she reads. Reality is somewhere in between.

The movie is sweet and charming with a deeply satirical bent. I do wish it had a true opening scene to help better set the stage, but it's a surprisingly intelligent little film with nice performances and an enjoyable sense of humor.

I recently viewed this movie and was left in awe at the sheer awfulness that this film portrayed. You would actually have to compliment the writers for making such a disgusting film, because to my knowledge no being who had any semblence of dignity could be capable of making such a horrible movie. Translations from the attempt at italian in this movie were terrible. In conclusion, avoid this film at all costs.

One of the earlier Fellini´s films, Lo Sceicco bianco show some of Fellini´s style: weird characters, bizzare and oniric situations, and abouve all a lot of lirism, showing how beatiful life can be.

The film is an acid comedy about fans and showbiz. A pure fan of printed soap operas met her beloved hero, a kind of Rodolfo Valentim. But the meeting will show her some of the truth about showbiz. Fellini transforms what could be an tragedy in a nice story of redemption.

A great surprise is the participation of Giulietta Massina as Cabíria. Cabíria appears as a common person, not yet as a prostitute, but adds a lot of lirism to film. In my opinion Nights of Cabiria and La Nave Va are the two best of Fellini.

Worth seeing

I wonder if Peter Sellers ever based any of his characters on the charmingly hapless "Fernando" (Alberto Soldi) from this really quite engaging comedy? He arrives in Rome with new new bride "Wanda" (Brunella Bovo) with a full schedule ahead of them. He's more of a traditionalist and on this trip he wants to meet with family and do the courteous rounds introducing his new bride. She, on the other hand, is obsessed with the eponymous film star, and manages to arrange a meeting. She doesn't tell her husband, of course, and sets off for what she assumes will be the briefest of hand-shakes. Not quite - she is soon carried away with the crew to a filming location on the coast. No phone, no train and "Fernando" many miles away doing the dutiful relative thing - without his "Wanda"! What now ensues sees both characters try to reunite whilst having some fun escapades en route. I can only hope it's a silent film they are making for the noise on set, the strangers wandering through shot and "Wanda" ending up dressed as a harem girl makes for a chaotic process that I suspect Fellini is not suggesting is based on his own. Meantime, "Fernando" is getting more and more perplexed, fed up, disorientated - and even tempted. His uncle also reminds them that tomorrow at 11am, they have an appointment - at the Vatican - with the Pope! Can they get back together in time? The scenario is naturally fun, Soldi has a little of the Chaplin to his persona and a strong supporting cast help keep this quickly paced and genuinely amusing for just shy of ninety minutes.

Quite an interesting comedy with ideas about fantasy versus reality, a wonderful Nino Rota score, and great work by Bovo, an actress who can capture some great expressions on her face: realistically big-eyed, naïve and innocent, as is required for her character. The film does however suffer from unevenness, trying to balance two styles of comedy - light-hearted semi fantasy and silly slapstick. By themselves either style works fine, but when joined together, it becomes a little messy. The film is not really helped by excessively silly supporting characters, and Trieste feels very over-the-top at times. Still, the aforementioned virtues, and interesting camera-work with an extensive range of different angles, are enough to keep this film afloat. Definitely recommended, even if not perfect.

I LOVE this movie! It's so nice to see a fun Fellini movie with pure humor—no deep symbolism, semi-autobiographical narcissism, or self- analysis here. I think that this is one of the few non-English movies where I laughed out loud--while viewing it by myself!! The plot is funny enough, but the thing that really nailed it for me was the expressions and gestures of the two main characters.

The movies starts as a couple comes to Rome on their honeymoon. Since the husband's uncle is an important public official, he has arranged a VIP tour of the city for them-—including an audience with the Pope!!. The husband, Ivan (Leopoldo Trieste), is anxious for everything to go well for between his uncle and his new wife, Wanda. (Brunella Bovo). However, Wanda is swept away by the chance to visit a photographic comic book studio (or fumetti) where a serial romance with her favorite star, 'The White Sheik,' is being made. She wants to know the future of the fumetti plot and get 'The White Sheik's autograph.

When Wanda disappears, Ivan is left to make excuses to his uncle for her whereabouts. In the meantime, she is taken away into by the fumetti group's photograph sessions. As time runs low, they are both left on a comical verge of a nervous breakdown.

THE WHITE SHEIK is a low-budget film set in early 1950s Rome. It concerns a newly-wed couple Ivan (Leopoldo Trieste) and Wanda (Brunella Bovo) who arrive in the city for their honeymoon. Ivan has the arrangements all planned - they will meet his uncle and aunt, see the Pope, visit the sights and enjoy a quiet evening in. However things start to go off the rails when Wanda decides to look for her hero the White Sheik (Alberto Sordi), star of a series of comic-books and films. Her enthusiasm leads her astray from the hotel and into a series of adventures involving her being transported to the film-set, being taken on a boat with the Sheik, lost in the wilderness and taken back to Rome in a strongman's automobile. Ivan tries to look for her, but ends up in a series of adventures of his own as he desperately tries to convince his relatives that everything is perfectly serene in his marital life. Fellini's film rebounds from misadventure to misadventure; it is in fact extremely funny, with wonderful performances from the three leading actors, all of whom understand the importance of gesture and facial expression. Fellini spent his early years working with clowns; it's clear that this experience informs the film. THE WHITE SHEIK has a relatively short running-time - just over 80 minutes - but it is well worth watching.

While not one of my favourite Federico Fellini films, this is one of his best early films, almost as good with Il Bidone and on par on I Vitelloni. As ever with Fellini it is beautifully filmed with a touch of quaintness, and his direction is restrained compared to his later films and with a mischievous touch of comedy and fantasy. Nino Rota's score is rousing and cheerful, almost like being at a carnival, while the writing is funny and moving- one of the most beautiful lines of any of Fellini's movies is "Our real lives are in our dreams, but sometimes dreams are a fatal abyss"- and the story is comically precise and sympathetic. The characters are engaging, again while not as identifiable as La Strada and Nights of Cabiria they are not detached as Casanova and Satyricon. Alberto Sordi's performance is top drawer as the dissolute titular character, while Leopoldo Trieste is arresting in his comic timing and Brunella Bovo is wonderfully innocent and entrancing. Giulietta Masina would go on to do even better performances like in Nights of Cabiria but she is still terrific. Overall, a great Fellini film. 9/10 Bethany Cox

"The film robustly freewheels between a girl's swooning abandon in an almost surreal surrounding (roistering troupers in costumes included) and a man's piteous befuddlement and predicament, and Fellini clearly indulges in the revelry and hubbub. But Wanda's untoward jollification will eventually shade into a letdown of reality check, when her jolly, affectionate idol's charming facade starts to unravel, as a playacting actor, Fernando is reduced to a henpecked buffoon as soon as his chat-up with Wanda on a sailing boat finishes and his thickset wife appears, thus Wanda's folly becomes a parable of a fangirl's caprice, whose castle-in-the-air finality is extraordinarily foreshadowed by the White Sheik's magic "swinging aloft" entrance. "Don't meet your idol" is a fair warning to heed and a starstruck Bovo makes a meal of her transition from doe-eyed demureness to remorse-driven pietà in the aftermath of a dashed dream (even the Tiber river pulls her leg in the nadir)."

read my full review on my blog: cinema omnivore, thanks

There is a curious "review" that begins the section of reviews for this film, in which one of the users of this website has written a scathing denouncement of this film. I don't quite know where this comes from (probably a prank) but it isn't relevant and it is the only such review. This is a brilliant film, Fellini's second opus, and bears many of the trademarks of Fellini: the sweeping shots of the streets of Rome, the Nino Rota score, the "decadence on the beach" sequence. It is also quite a clever parody of film genres and styles. And I was very pleasantly surprised to find that it contains a delightful scene with Giulietta Masina as Cabiria, the role which is expanded in the film Nights of Cabiria five years later.

The White Sheik is a characteristically distant film by Fellini, a giggle-inducing featherweight screwball comedy that opens very cynically on the first two days of a marriage, a socially meticulous layman having brought his virgin bride to Rome for their honeymoon, a meeting with the Pope, and to introduce her to his uncle. When he takes a nap, she, already regretful and bored, sneaks off to find the offices of a romance magazine she reads devotedly with the intent to meet the film's title character, a manly soap opera hero. Blindly smitten, she does not care when she finds herself far from Rome, alone on a boat with this hunk, hilariously over the top with Alberto Sordi in the role, leaving her distraught groom to scramble covering for her. Fellini and Michelangelo Antonioni's goofy set-up leads to a hilarious satirical turning point and subsequently Fellini's trademark lingering and wanderlust.

This is self-steering gear, one you can watch very easily and indifferent to the characters' pain, pleasure, grief or joy because Fellini wants only to have some farcical fun at arm's length. As always, even Nino Rota's lush, carnivalesque music is almost incidental, as if it were source music, complete with Fellini's quaint imagery. Really, it is quite a funny movie.

Having seen most of Federico Fellini's movies, any viewer who not only watches the films but experiences the cinema may draw the conclusion that the director changed his style over the years. In other words, he turned to be more "skeptical" more "knowledgeable" and more "dreamlike." To realize that, we have to consider his earliest films - his honeymoon period - for clearer understanding of the change. The movie that resembles Fellini's freshness most is LO SCEICCO BIANCO. Here, it is hardly the Fellini we know from JULIET OF THE SPIRITS or CITY OF WOMEN. It is a fresh, genuine, young Fellini where some viewers even fail to recognize the director. Nevertheless, if one watches the film more deeply, it is possible to notice something characteristic of Fellini. To make it more clear, let me briefly look at the content first.

A young couple from the provincial part of Italy, Ivan Cavalli (Leopoldo Trieste) and Wanda Giardino Cavalli (Brunella Bovo), come to Rome for their honeymoon. Here, mind you that honeymoon symbolizes not only the mutual freshness, appreciation but also the lack of boredom resulting from routine of life. The honeymoon also appears to be the sort of "illusive prelude" to the everyday. Ivan is very strict, honorable and plans the visit exactly to the very letter with the schedule list which contains introducing of his wife to his noble family, sightseeing of Rome and the climax of the stay: the audience at the pope's. Wanda, however, is more "light hearted", enthusiastically absorbed in arts of 24th May Street and aims rather at adventure than at the formal side of the visit. When they enter the Tre Fiori Hotel, she soon disappears fleeing into the world of her dreams, illusions and fantasies. Will she find the stay at her illusive world of a white sheik (Lo Sceicco Bianco) more comfortable and convincing?

While analyzing the content (not revealing more of it), I think that this is one of the movies where Fellini is mostly HIMSELF. He touches similar themes like in his later movies, including social criticism, formality in relations, dominance, destructive illusions, social discrepancies, and disillusion. Yet, he remains absolutely clear. Criticizing social conventions, he aims at addressing the problem: what should the marital status be like? While discussing dominance, he seems to draw our attention to the different personalities of the couple. Most importantly, however, Fellini develops the destructive effect of illusions, which he would do in many of his later films, paying attention to Wanda's fanatic idolatry and fantasies: "real life is a dream." When she enters the 24th May Street and, more strictly, when she meets the white sheik, isn't that Cabiria entering the house of Alberto Lazzari in Fellini 1957 movie? Is the world of art separated from the ordinary world? Had Wanda better just get the autograph and a cigarette as a souvenir and leave in order not to be led into unpleasant disillusion?

But, according to my deeper analysis of the themes, you may falsely conclude that the movie is pretty psychological. In no way! It is a humorous story, witty adventure with moments at which you will rather split your side than reflect. The atmosphere is perfect for ordinary viewers as well as Fellini buffs. It is not a Felliniesque movie but reveals more the characteristics of I VITELLONI, LA STRADA and NIGHTS OF CABIRIA. Moreover, LO SCEICCO BIANCO can boast wonderful cinematography with really well managed images. Concerning wit, the most memorable moments for me were two, in fact. One being Ivan who gets informed where Wanda is and, consequently, his sentence: "Dear uncle, the name of Cavalli..." ends with "we will meet in the Vatican at 11 o'clock..." The other being the final moment when the noble family at last gets to know Wanda, the uncle says "Wanda Carissima!" (dearest Wanda) and their memorable walk towards St Peter's Basilica. Except for the two, there are many other witty moments that I won't reveal now. You must see the film. As far as camera is concerned, the absolute visual masterwork for me was the first view of the white sheik. We see him illusively, like Wanda regards him... And another strong point to be mentioned here: the wonderful music by Nino Rota, a mainstay in Fellini's films. UNFORGETTABLE!

The performances of the movie constitute the different aspect I'd like to discuss in the separate paragraph. There are many non professionals but it does not reduce the value of the movie. The cast do extraordinary jobs, including the leading couple: Leopoldo Trieste and Brunella Bovo as well as Alberto Sordi in the role of the white sheik and many of the supporting cast. Here, it is important to mention that Fellini had that very significant flair for casting people. But, the most important fact is that we can see Giulietta Masina in LO SCEICCO BIANCO. She plays...Cabiria, different one than a few years later. She appears in one scene but what a terrific performance it is! For me, it was the best scene of the movie. Masina is given very little time on screen in an undeveloped role, yet we all get the clear point of her portrayal and once you see her, you never forget her.

Very good film that I highly recommend anyone to see! To me, it appeared as if a "cinematic honeymoon" period of Fellini, of his skillful direction, of his themes' development and the particular charm that he skipped later. LO SCEICCO BIANCO is what movies have best: entertainment and education. Who was Wanda's white sheik in the end? Don't we also have "white sheiks" in our lives that lead us more often into illusions and, unfortunately, more rarely into disillusions? 9/10