Alla Nazimova & Rudolph Valentino in Camille (1921)

Rudolph Valentino (1923)

“I hate Valentino! All men hate Valentino. I hate his oriental optics; I hate his classic nose; I hate his Roman face; I hate his smile; I hate his glistening teeth; I hate his patent leather hair; I hate his Svengali glare; I hate him because he dances too well; I hate him because he’s a slicker; I hate him because he’s the great lover of the screen; I hate him because he’s an embezzler of hearts; I hate him because he’s too apt in the art of osculation; I hate him because he’s leading man for Gloria Swanson; I hate him because he’s too good-looking.

Ever since he came galloping in with the “Four Horseman” he has been the cause of more home cooked battle royals than they can print in the papers. The women are all dizzy over him. The men have formed a secret order (of which I am running for president and chief executioner as you may notice) to loathe, hate and despise him for obvious reasons.

What! Me jealous?—Oh, no—I just hate him.”

-Player Hater/Journalist Richard Dorgan (Photoplay magazine, 1922), expressing the general dislike American men felt towards the alarmingly metrosexual & androgynous Valentino.

(Not surprisingly, Valentino was not a fan of Dorgan’s opinions and threatened to kill Dorgan if he ever set foot on the studio lot again)

Alla Nazimova & Rudolph Valentino in Camille (1921, dir. Ray Smallwood)

Rudolph Valentino & Alice Terry in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921, dir. Rex Ingram) (via)

Photographer: Arthur Rice 

Rudolph Valentino in Blood and Sand (1922, dir. Fred Niblo) (via)

Poster art: Batiste Madalena edition (via)

Up until the 1950s, many movie theaters rejected the mass-produced, lithographed film posters designed and distributed by Hollywood studios in favor of original, hand-painted posters created by local artists. 

During the 1920s, Batiste Madalena was the resident artist at the Eastman Theatre in Rochester, NY., where he designed and hand-painted about eight original posters per week. Madalena, who is considered the greatest poster painter of the period, was given full artistic control, with the only directive from his boss being that the posters had to be clearly visible to passengers on passing trolley cars.

More examples of Madalena’s work here. 

Alla Nazimova & Rudolph Valentino in Camille (1921, dir. Ray Smallwood) (via) 

Photo by Arthur Rice.