Fellini’s Underrated Gem: Whole Lotta Sheiking Going On

Federico Fellini’s 1952 film “The White Sheik” is rarely mentioned alongside his undisputed classics--”La Dolce Vita,” “8 1/2” and “La Strada.”

Yet this underrated little gem is one of Fellini’s most charming and comic films. It’s certainly one of the famed Italian director’s more accessible and straightforward works. His first solo effort as a director, “The White Sheik” is marked by a neo-realist style that stands in contrast with the more baroque surrealism that defined some of his later films.

The White Sheik is a hero in a “fumetti,” a pulp Italian comic book using photographs of actors rather than illustrations. When a naive young woman named Wanda (Brunella Bova), arrives in Rome on her honeymoon, she secretly sets out to find the actor who plays the White Sheik. Not only does Wanda meet her idol (Alberto Sordi), but she unexpectedly ends up spending an entire day with him on location.

Fellini proceeds to deftly expose the superficial and hardly romantic characters behind “The White Sheik” serial. His biting portrayal of these show-biz charlatans is both funny and a little bit frightening. You pity poor Wanda as this rather dense beauty struggles to catch on that her dreamboat is actually a manipulative coward.

Meanwhile, Wanda’s husband, Ivan (Leopoldo Trieste), searches frantically for his AWOL wife. Unaware of Wanda’s infatuation with the Sheik, he hasn’t a clue as to where she might have gone. “The White Sheik” is never more ingratiatingly funny than when we watch the bungling, high-strung Ivan try to conceal Wanda’s disappearance from his Rome-based relatives. Because of “family honor,” he refuses to reveal the embarrassing truth that his new wife has skipped out on him during their honeymoon.

In one touching sequence, an exhausted and emotionally frayed Ivan sits in a piazza at night. No longer able to conceal his grief, he finally pours his heart out to two complete strangers. This scene is pure Fellini as the master director mixes deeply felt emotion with subtle humor and charm.

“The White Sheik” may not be one of Fellini’s landmark films, but it is a breezy and supremely likable work.

“The White Sheik” (1952), directed by Federico Fellini. 86 minutes. Not rated.