Providing her friend Rudolph Valentino a graceful exit from the pseudo-sublime to the wittily ridiculous, Frances Marion wrote a part sequel, part spoof of The Sheik of 1921. In a dual role, Valentino plays the Sheik's sultry son Ahmed, and also the now middle-aged Sheik. Audiences thus got their only glimpse of what an aging Valentino might look like-and, well, "today's peach is tomorrow's prune," as Ahmed himself orates-for the actor was to die, at age 31, before the film was released. Valentino may have left 'em swooning, but don't imagine audiences in the twenties didn't "get it." Son of the Sheik is an exuberant, erotic, gorgeously mounted paean to escapist romance for the sheer love of it, tongue planted in cheek as firmly as Rudy's is in Vilma Banky's for much of the film. Scenarist Marion called it "tempestuous tussles in a tasseled tent"-but admitted it turned out better than any of them had dared hope.