The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez
Starring:
Pomeroy Cannon
Josef Swickard
Bridgetta Clark
Rudolph Valentino
Wallace Beery
Alice Terry
Cinematography:
John F. Seitz
Distributed By:
Metro Pictures
Release Date:
March 6, 1921 (US)
Runtime:
134 minutes (edited version)
156 minutes (complete version)
Country:
United States
Language:
Silent
English intertitles
Budget:
$800,000 or $1 million
Box Office:
$9.2 million or $4 million (world gross)
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse is a 1921 American silent epic war film produced by Metro Pictures Corporation and directed by Rex Ingram. Based on the 1916 Spanish novel The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, it was adapted for the screen by June Mathis. The film stars Pomeroy Cannon, Josef Swickard, Bridgetta Clark, Rudolph Valentino, Wallace Beery, and Alice Terry.
Why It Rocks
Vicente Blasco Ibáñez's epic novel The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse from 1916 was the first novel about World War I to find a wide audience in the United States. It was a multigenerational saga that shifted from cattle ranches in Argentina to the battle trenches of France. The author’s ultimate message had something to do with maintaining racial purity and with the futility of war, but most readers took away the perfidy of the German people. For the film adaptation, some of the more stridently anti-German touches were removed and Valentino’s part was built up by adding a tango sequence.
Prior to getting a role in this film, Rudolph Valentino's dark complexion limited his roles to mostly bit parts, ethnic roles, and as villains. He was given the role of Julio Desnoyers (son of Marcelo Desnoyers and grandson of the late Madariaga), in one of Valentino's first major film roles that showed what he was capable of. He brought something new to the screen, and the film helped make him a star of unprecedented proportions
Intolerance and Civilization (both from 1916) set high standards for historical epics, but here, the director and screenwriter didn't aim quite as high, as they blended Blasco Ibdfez’s artistic pretensions with his shrewd grasp of the marketplace. The film manages both sides of the debate: adulterous passion coupled with guilt and remorse, xenophobic blood-lust tied to pacifist lectures and anti-war slogans. The story’s characters shared this dichotomy.
A prologue set in Argentina introduces the wealthy cattle baron Madariaga, whose daughters marry a Frenchman and a German respectively. Both families leave the New World for the Old, Karl von Hartrott to raise his sons as German soldiers, Marcelo Desnoyers to confront his past as a student rebel and draft dodger. The film criticizes Marcelo for frittering away his share of Madariaga’s fortune by collecting antiques, and for losing his moral compass by purchasing a castle on the Marne. But viewers are asked to commiserate with him later when German officers overrun his castle and use his treasures for debauchery.
Incredible spectacle courtesy of the film's director Rex Ingram, building scenes with hundreds of extras (studio publicity claimed that 12,000 people worked on the film). But he also had a plodding visual style, one that was locked into an earlier age of films as stagebound tableaus.
Stunning cinematography that pulls of some impressive effects: a dolly shot during Valentino's tango with dancer Beatrice Dominguez, expressive lighting during love scenes, and beautifully composed matte shots.
Alan Hale and Wallace Beery, two of the most reliable character actors in the early years of sound film, craft strong, riveting individuals (Beery even pulls off a scene in which he takes a bubble bath).
Bad Qualities
The overall plotline is very confusing and difficult to comprehend, especially if you hadn't read the novel and aren't using it as a guide, in which is the film's plot is a ramshackle, unholy mess, with war, rape, adultery, cross-dressing, tangos, fire-breathing dragons, and Death as the Grim Reaper, tinted green and seated atop a horse. Even Christ, disguised as a “stranger” in a third floor garret, makes an appearance. All of this can be very overwhelming for the common moviegoer.
A lot of the film feels inert, despite the editor's efforts to pull together a story from around over a million feet of footage.
*
