This is a really creaky film that will be of interest only to hardcore Rudolph Valentino fans. The plotline is so full of inconsistencies that keeping track of them ceases to amuse after a while. Valentino is the only point of interest in an this primitive film with a maddeningly inconsistent plot. The irony of Valentino's casting in this film as a man who never gets to consummate his marriage with his virgin wife is heavy in view of his unconsummated marriage to Jean Acker in real life.
10 Reviews
"Kitchen sink" melodrama.
planktonrules9 April 2010
Warning: Spoilers
This is the sort of over-done melodrama that must have played well at the time, but is like a hunk of cheese--over time is just starts to stink. That's because the plot, by modern standards, is just archaic--archaic and filled with way too many story elements. The only reason to see it today is if you are a fan of Rudolph Valentino, as he co-stars in it. Just don't expect a lot of magic. The plot is a twisted soap opera that includes adultery, murder, blackmail and people falling to their deaths! In addition, the plot is very, very complicated--overly complicated if you ask me.
The film concerns a rather sick family. The rich father has remarried and his new wife is a slut who runs around on the side with a boy-toy (Valentino). The adult daughter is sweet and a bit boring by comparison and she's in love with a good, solid man. You find out that the wife is cheating, but is planning on fleecing her husband before ultimately running off to South America with her lover. But, in the meantime she has proof the husband committed a murder and convinces her boyfriend to blackmail the husband with it. Oddly, the older man doesn't seem to care about the attempted blackmail, so Valentino plans to marry the sweet young daughter in order to force the father to pay him off to get rid of him. Isn't this way overly complicated?! Why marry the girl? Don't you think the wife would be a bit upset if Valentino married her step-daughter?! And why would the young girl agree to marry him--as she ultimately does? None of this makes much sense--and yet there are many, many story gimmicks that enter the film until its conclusion.
Overall, the film is hardly believable and too jam-packed full of silly story elements to be taken seriously. The acting is generally okay--but no better. I've seen a ton of silents--possibly more than anyone on IMDb, and this one is at best a mediocre film...and that's being a bit generous.
The film concerns a rather sick family. The rich father has remarried and his new wife is a slut who runs around on the side with a boy-toy (Valentino). The adult daughter is sweet and a bit boring by comparison and she's in love with a good, solid man. You find out that the wife is cheating, but is planning on fleecing her husband before ultimately running off to South America with her lover. But, in the meantime she has proof the husband committed a murder and convinces her boyfriend to blackmail the husband with it. Oddly, the older man doesn't seem to care about the attempted blackmail, so Valentino plans to marry the sweet young daughter in order to force the father to pay him off to get rid of him. Isn't this way overly complicated?! Why marry the girl? Don't you think the wife would be a bit upset if Valentino married her step-daughter?! And why would the young girl agree to marry him--as she ultimately does? None of this makes much sense--and yet there are many, many story gimmicks that enter the film until its conclusion.
Overall, the film is hardly believable and too jam-packed full of silly story elements to be taken seriously. The acting is generally okay--but no better. I've seen a ton of silents--possibly more than anyone on IMDb, and this one is at best a mediocre film...and that's being a bit generous.
spoilers ahead but it's a rotten movie anyway
marymorrissey21 April 2010
Warning: Spoilers
Primitive, as one reviewer describes this film, is generous, this movie is really pathetic. The story is only driven along by the titles, after each one of which some poor excuse for a filmed scene "illustrates" what we've just read. It's the most ineptly conceived silent I've ever seen. Personally I think the best performance comes from the little lady. The stepmom's is quite odd, and I didn't get any "spark" between her and Rudy, as another reviewer did. I can't imagine this movie would have played well even in 1918.
What is really kind of remarkable is that come time for the happy ending, not only does evil Rudolph get away scot free (Why? One wonders. Padded with so many superfluous bits mini flashbacks and "here's what she imagined would happen"s, it would have been simpler to use that wasted time to deal "the Count" some deserved fate.), but the really shocking thing, even for a pre-coder, is that dear old father-of-the-bride is never held accountable for a cold-blooded murder he'd committed early in his career. Absurdly, the audience is even asked to believe that this craven cow is innocent of more recent corruption charges. Evidently at all costs we can't have this "nice" old fool thrown into the pokey. In the end the happy couple rejoices at the woman's having gotten her marriage to "the Count" annulled. Funny that for the ill-playing pains to which the writer went to make the conclusion clear even to people unfamiliar with the concept of "annulment", it seems that unfortunately the author misunderstood the meaning of the word "wedlock". Maybe he'd seen dogs mating? At any rate he appears to have taken the word to mean "intercourse"!
What is really kind of remarkable is that come time for the happy ending, not only does evil Rudolph get away scot free (Why? One wonders. Padded with so many superfluous bits mini flashbacks and "here's what she imagined would happen"s, it would have been simpler to use that wasted time to deal "the Count" some deserved fate.), but the really shocking thing, even for a pre-coder, is that dear old father-of-the-bride is never held accountable for a cold-blooded murder he'd committed early in his career. Absurdly, the audience is even asked to believe that this craven cow is innocent of more recent corruption charges. Evidently at all costs we can't have this "nice" old fool thrown into the pokey. In the end the happy couple rejoices at the woman's having gotten her marriage to "the Count" annulled. Funny that for the ill-playing pains to which the writer went to make the conclusion clear even to people unfamiliar with the concept of "annulment", it seems that unfortunately the author misunderstood the meaning of the word "wedlock". Maybe he'd seen dogs mating? At any rate he appears to have taken the word to mean "intercourse"!
interesting supporting characters
pocca17 August 2005
A typical pre-twenties silent melodrama centered around a main character who must sacrifice her own happiness for Duty. Here we have Mary (Vera Sisson), an ingénue who, to save her father from disgrace, gives up the man she loves to marry a blackmailing gigolo, Count Roberto (Rudolph Valentino, playing a more developed version of the "cabaret parasite" from "The Eyes of Youth"). As often happens with this sort of movie, the wicked supporting characters of the gigolo and the sly, sexy stepmother (Kathleen Kirkham)with whom he is in cahoots and having an affairare far more interesting than the virtuous leads. Perhaps Lillian Gish could have made prissy Mary's dilemma affecting , but as played by Sisson she comes off as a gormless twit who cannot even wade into ankle deep seawater to retrieve a rambunctious toddler. As the teaser title implies, the marriage between the gigolo and the prig stays unconsummated, everything leading up to the moment when a frustrated Roberto breaks down Mary's bedroom door (surely what the original audience went in hopes of seeing rather than Mary's noble sacrifices). She doesn't seem worth the effort, but this scene is excitingly filmed and is an interesting precursor to a similar event in "The Son of the Sheik."
Valentino and Kirhham make this film worthwhile (there's a real spark between them), but try to find the restored DVD version, rather than sloppily made video production.
Valentino and Kirhham make this film worthwhile (there's a real spark between them), but try to find the restored DVD version, rather than sloppily made video production.
Young Valentino in a Bad Movie
Cineanalyst7 August 2010
Warning: Spoilers
"The Married Virgin" is a bad movie by the standards of any era or genre. The only reason it has received a DVD release from a top company is that it features Rudolph Valentino—before he was a star. In it, he plays a swindler who has an affair with a married woman, and they try to blackmail her husband and his daughter. The film doesn't get much from the otherwise promising concept of an actor playing a character pretending to be another character. In one scene, Valentino's intertitles state, "You pay me a great compliment. I had no idea my acting was so convincing - - - but surely you know it is a performance." Unfortunately, not Valentino or anyone else in this film gives a convincing performance. At least, he and Vera Sisson (who is probably the actual lead here) are tolerable, which is more than can be said about the awful acting of those playing the stepmother and father.
The melodrama is overwrought and boring. By the end, it doesn't even make much sense. The marriage part of the blackmail is unnecessary. Why would the father be more willing to pay off a blackmailer through the marriage of his daughter and subsequent "settlement" rather than just giving him the money and not dragging his daughter through such an ordeal? Additionally, in a large offense of telling instead of showing and manufacturing a happy ending out of nowhere, a single title card exonerates the father of his crimes; a man, who throughout the film, we had been told was guilty of murder and graft. The title claims, "Actually innocent, McMillan knows he must flee the state to escape a political frame-up."
There is also some jarring continuity editing—throughout the film, cuts just seem to be a bit off. I doubt that has much to do with the restoration of this film given the professionals who did it. "The Married Virgin" was a B-picture of its day, made by a production company that I hadn't heard of. Somewhat interesting in the film is the employment of a flashback inside a flashback in one sequence, and there's a through the mirror shot of a character in another scene.
The melodrama is overwrought and boring. By the end, it doesn't even make much sense. The marriage part of the blackmail is unnecessary. Why would the father be more willing to pay off a blackmailer through the marriage of his daughter and subsequent "settlement" rather than just giving him the money and not dragging his daughter through such an ordeal? Additionally, in a large offense of telling instead of showing and manufacturing a happy ending out of nowhere, a single title card exonerates the father of his crimes; a man, who throughout the film, we had been told was guilty of murder and graft. The title claims, "Actually innocent, McMillan knows he must flee the state to escape a political frame-up."
There is also some jarring continuity editing—throughout the film, cuts just seem to be a bit off. I doubt that has much to do with the restoration of this film given the professionals who did it. "The Married Virgin" was a B-picture of its day, made by a production company that I hadn't heard of. Somewhat interesting in the film is the employment of a flashback inside a flashback in one sequence, and there's a through the mirror shot of a character in another scene.
If Mel Brooks directed a silent melodrama, this might be the result
MissSimonetta25 January 2019
Warning: Spoilers
Silent film mavens only watch this one because a young Valentino plays the villain, but I will say this: silent film mavens should watch THE MARRIED VIRGIN because it is over-the-top hilarious in how bad it is.
This is truly incompetent film-making, complete with bad storytelling and editing. I'm talking flashbacks within flashbacks, insipid episodes with little children being cutesy. The characters are all stereotypes-- the evil trophy wife who loves adultery, the saintly young maiden who loves her father, the boring goody-goody fiancee who loves goodness, the evil gigolo who loves money.
Valentino and Kathleen Kirkham are fun villains, I will admit. Anytime they're onscreen, you're bound to have a good time. That they are so much more likable than the heroes is a bad sign. You really do wish they'd just run off to Argentina and the rest of the movie would just be about them ripping other people off and then cackling about it.
The high point of the melodrama has to be when Valentino's evil count, drunk, grief-stricken, and sexually frustrated, tries to endanger the heroine's virtue by bursting into her boudoir in the middle of the night. It's supposed to be suspenseful, but when the villain dives at the heroine only to belly flop on her bed, you're aren't going to be shivering in your boots. Then the maid runs to the rescue and shoves a crucifix at Valentino's face like he's a vampire. It's so campy I have to wonder if it was intentionally so, but I'm honestly not sure. The story is just so awful.
I feel like this movie was written around its suggestive title. It cares more about melodrama and shock than it does developing characters, that's for sure. Still, if you like Valentino and you like campy melodrama, you'll want to see this.
This is truly incompetent film-making, complete with bad storytelling and editing. I'm talking flashbacks within flashbacks, insipid episodes with little children being cutesy. The characters are all stereotypes-- the evil trophy wife who loves adultery, the saintly young maiden who loves her father, the boring goody-goody fiancee who loves goodness, the evil gigolo who loves money.
Valentino and Kathleen Kirkham are fun villains, I will admit. Anytime they're onscreen, you're bound to have a good time. That they are so much more likable than the heroes is a bad sign. You really do wish they'd just run off to Argentina and the rest of the movie would just be about them ripping other people off and then cackling about it.
The high point of the melodrama has to be when Valentino's evil count, drunk, grief-stricken, and sexually frustrated, tries to endanger the heroine's virtue by bursting into her boudoir in the middle of the night. It's supposed to be suspenseful, but when the villain dives at the heroine only to belly flop on her bed, you're aren't going to be shivering in your boots. Then the maid runs to the rescue and shoves a crucifix at Valentino's face like he's a vampire. It's so campy I have to wonder if it was intentionally so, but I'm honestly not sure. The story is just so awful.
I feel like this movie was written around its suggestive title. It cares more about melodrama and shock than it does developing characters, that's for sure. Still, if you like Valentino and you like campy melodrama, you'll want to see this.
If it weren't for Rudy
bkoganbing14 March 2017
The Married Virgin is worth seeing only for the presence of screen legend Rudolph Valentino in his salad days before stardom. Here he plays a villain, something of what he was in real life, a no account gigolo who gives himself a title and the airs that go with it. Rudy's the boy toy of Kathleen Kirkham second and trophy wife of Edward Jobson who Rudy is blackmailing.
Rudy's blackmail price; Jobson's daughter in wedlock Vera Sisson a rather non-descript young beauty with no personality whose heart belongs with earnest and dull Frank Newburg. Honestly I can't believe she wouldn't have gone whole hog for Rudy next to the drip Newburg was.
She does marry Rudy, but she won't give in to him. Hence the title The Married Virgin. Oh you poor child.
Valentino's presence next to these other nondescripts stands out so glaringly it's frightening. Although he might have been stuck in these exotic villain roles his whole life had his career not taken the turn it did.
The film is eminently forgettable other than for Rudolph Valentino.
Rudy's blackmail price; Jobson's daughter in wedlock Vera Sisson a rather non-descript young beauty with no personality whose heart belongs with earnest and dull Frank Newburg. Honestly I can't believe she wouldn't have gone whole hog for Rudy next to the drip Newburg was.
She does marry Rudy, but she won't give in to him. Hence the title The Married Virgin. Oh you poor child.
Valentino's presence next to these other nondescripts stands out so glaringly it's frightening. Although he might have been stuck in these exotic villain roles his whole life had his career not taken the turn it did.
The film is eminently forgettable other than for Rudolph Valentino.
Nice Little Melodrama that Valentino Lights Up
jayraskin131 July 2010
I saw this on a DVD that was part of a collection of Valentino films. Valentino does not appear for the first ten minutes, so I jumped to the conclusion that he played a bit part and the video makers were just adding it as fuller. When Valentino did come on, I found that I was wrong. He does have a substantial part and gives a very strong performance.
One thing that is really weird about the film is that Kathleen Kirkham plays the mother-in-law to Vera Sisson. Yet Kathleen was 23 years old and Sisson was 27 years old when the film was made. Kathleen is quite good in the movie. She shows a great deal of passion for Valentino.
The film is nicely shot and edited with a good and effective use of close-ups to emphasize details. Especially noteworthy is a flashback within a flashback, something I have rarely seen in a film before. Kathleen tells Valentino about a time when she overhead a blackmailer talking to her husband. We flashback to the scene with the blackmailer. The blackmailer tells the husband (Edward Jobson) that he saw the husband murder a man. We then flashback to the murder of the man. We then return to the blackmailer and the husband, followed by a return to the present time and the wife talking to Valentino. It reminded me of the nesting structure of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein." Nearly every scene reveals great details about the time period, the cars, the mansion with the diverging staircase, a game of tennis with small rackets, even the clothes worn to the beach are fascinating to watch and capture the time period wonderfully. It gives us a nice idea how the upper class lived at this time.
The plot is not outstanding, but I think it represents a well done period melodrama involving a European Count who ruins a rich man by first seducing his young wife, then blackmailing him and finally forcing his daughter into marriage. The Count proves that he is a gentleman after all by not forcing his new bride to have sex with him, but saying that he will wait until she wants to. Thus she remains a "married virgin".
If it did not contain Valentino, the film would be merely interesting, but Valentino's assured and well acted performance makes it quite enjoyable.
One thing that is really weird about the film is that Kathleen Kirkham plays the mother-in-law to Vera Sisson. Yet Kathleen was 23 years old and Sisson was 27 years old when the film was made. Kathleen is quite good in the movie. She shows a great deal of passion for Valentino.
The film is nicely shot and edited with a good and effective use of close-ups to emphasize details. Especially noteworthy is a flashback within a flashback, something I have rarely seen in a film before. Kathleen tells Valentino about a time when she overhead a blackmailer talking to her husband. We flashback to the scene with the blackmailer. The blackmailer tells the husband (Edward Jobson) that he saw the husband murder a man. We then flashback to the murder of the man. We then return to the blackmailer and the husband, followed by a return to the present time and the wife talking to Valentino. It reminded me of the nesting structure of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein." Nearly every scene reveals great details about the time period, the cars, the mansion with the diverging staircase, a game of tennis with small rackets, even the clothes worn to the beach are fascinating to watch and capture the time period wonderfully. It gives us a nice idea how the upper class lived at this time.
The plot is not outstanding, but I think it represents a well done period melodrama involving a European Count who ruins a rich man by first seducing his young wife, then blackmailing him and finally forcing his daughter into marriage. The Count proves that he is a gentleman after all by not forcing his new bride to have sex with him, but saying that he will wait until she wants to. Thus she remains a "married virgin".
If it did not contain Valentino, the film would be merely interesting, but Valentino's assured and well acted performance makes it quite enjoyable.
Delightfully sinister..
Falconeer18 October 2015
Rare, earlier Rudy Valentino film from 1918, and one where Rudy gets to play a truly evil character. As the Count Roberto Di Fraccini, he is a fortune hunting gigolo, who uses his sex appeal to seduce a young virgin into becoming his wife. He cares nothing for the innocent girl, but has an eye on her vast inheritance. When blackmailing her father doesn't work, the Count and his lover, (the young girl's mother-in law no less!) devise an evil plan.
High drama, broken hearted damsels, and villains; it's what the Great Era of Silent Cinema was all about. Valentino might have shown more brightly in later, more high profile films like "Four Horsemen of the Apocalaypse" and "Blood & Sand," but here is a chance to see him in a more stark, and edgy performance. It's wonderful that this early film has survived through the years, and has even had a DVD release. "The Married Virgin" is absolute essential viewing For Valentino fans. Another reviewer commented on the 'choppy script' and inconsistencies, but I saw none. Maybe this person saw a different, or incomplete cut of the film. I thought this was near perfect..and it took years for me to acquire this title, but it was worth the effort.
High drama, broken hearted damsels, and villains; it's what the Great Era of Silent Cinema was all about. Valentino might have shown more brightly in later, more high profile films like "Four Horsemen of the Apocalaypse" and "Blood & Sand," but here is a chance to see him in a more stark, and edgy performance. It's wonderful that this early film has survived through the years, and has even had a DVD release. "The Married Virgin" is absolute essential viewing For Valentino fans. Another reviewer commented on the 'choppy script' and inconsistencies, but I saw none. Maybe this person saw a different, or incomplete cut of the film. I thought this was near perfect..and it took years for me to acquire this title, but it was worth the effort.
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