Anguished Valentino in ‘Blood and Sand’

Fred Niblo’s “Blood and Sand” (1922), which screens Wednesday at 8 p.m. at the Silent Movie, 611 N. Fairfax Ave., has got to be one of the most tragically prophetic films ever made, a stunning instance of art anticipating life because of its striking parallels between the fate of its hero and the fabled star who plays him, Rudolph Valentino. It’s long been said of Valentino that he was a simple man for whom fame brought such unhappiness, thanks largely to his vulnerability to his manipulative and destructive second wife, the talented but pretentious designer Natacha Rambova. He died at 31 from a perforated ulcer.

Consider “Blood and Sand,” which Valentino’s mentor June Mathis adapted from the Vicente Blasco Ibanez novel--as she had done earlier with the Spanish author’s “The Four Horsemen of Apocalypse,” which made Valentino a star. Its hero is a poor, naive young man who becomes Spain’s top bullfighter, marries his demure, barren childhood sweetheart Lila Lee but falls prey to utterly heartless Nita Naldi’s outrageously voluptuous and witty vamp.

Lavishly produced, “Blood and Sand” is heady stuff in which the timelessly charismatic Valentino--who could be a subtle actor and whose anguish here seems all too real--lets himself be tempted to top the knowing, put-on theatrics of Naldi by flaring his nostrils and rolling and popping his eyes. You should be warned of--but not be put off by--the tepid bullfighting sequences, which consist mainly of stock footage intercut with a few shots of Valentino in the ring. Information: (213) 653-2389.

The UCLA Film Archive’s “Multicultural Europe” series continues Thursday at 7:30 p.m. in UCLA’s Melnitz Theater with Belgian writer-director Marc Didden’s “Brussels by Night” (1983), a brooding psychological drama that rigorously builds tension without resorting to conventional exposition. It opens with a shot of Max (Francois Beukelaers) beginning his day in the suburbs by playing a game of Russian roulette. Not until the film’s end do we learn what is profoundly disturbing this tall, rangy man of 40. Reckless and angry, he heads for Brussels where he meets with a retired colleague (Michiel Mentens), later striking up an acquaintance with a bartender (Ingrid De Vos), an aspiring actress, and another of her customers (Amid Chakir), a Moroccan-born subway-train driver.

These four lonely people become caught up in an aimless odyssey, drifting and colliding, a flirtation developing between the bartender and the two younger men that kindles a jealousy sparked with racism on the part of Max. The highly atmospheric “Brussels by Night” has a bleak film noir look, lots of rock on the soundtrack and admirably achieves maximum impact from minimal means.

The series continues Saturday at 7:30 p.m. with Tevlik Daser’s “40 Meters of Germany” (1986), which refers to the size of the back yard in which a maladjusted Turkish immigrant confines his wife daily, and Houchang Allahyari’s “I Love Vienna” (1991), a story about an Iranian German-language teacher, who yearns to know the culture familiar to him through his studies. The Austria of his dreams, however, does not quite jibe with the reality that he, his sister and his son experience. Neither of these films was available for preview.

From Denmark comes a pair of documentaries, Ingrid Oustrup Jensen’s sensitive and revealing 44-minute “Mothers in Foreign Homelands” (1984), a study of a group of women from Turkey and Pakistan coping the best they can in an alien environment that they sense is becoming increasingly hostile to foreign workers and their families. Lise Roos’ 53-minute “Kolonihaven” dissipates whatever interest there might be in the attempt of Greenlanders to retain their cultural heritage and identity in Denmark with her deadly dull, academic approach. Information: (310) 206-FILM.

The least familiar of the many outstanding films that the American Cinematheque will be presenting at its weekend tribute at the Directors Guild to Gary Essert and Gary Abrahams and to their earlier venture, Filmex, is Gaston J. M. Kabore’s exquisite 1982 “God’s Gift” (screening Saturday following the 2 p.m. screening of “Memories of Underdevelopment”). Set in Upper Volta, it is a story about the healing power of love, telling of a boy (Serge Yanogo), found lying on the ground near death, who is saved by a weaver and his family.

Information: (213) 466-FILM.