Watch The White Sheik For Free

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Load of rubbish!!

Brilliant and touching

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

The White Sheik is a characteristically distant film by Fellini, a giggle-inducing featherweight screwball comedy that opens very cynically on the first two days of a marriage, a socially meticulous layman having brought his virgin bride to Rome for their honeymoon, a meeting with the Pope, and to introduce her to his uncle. When he takes a nap, she, already regretful and bored, sneaks off to find the offices of a romance magazine she reads devotedly with the intent to meet the film's title character, a manly soap opera hero. Blindly smitten, she does not care when she finds herself far from Rome, alone on a boat with this hunk, hilariously over the top with Alberto Sordi in the role, leaving her distraught groom to scramble covering for her. Fellini and Michelangelo Antonioni's goofy set-up leads to a hilarious satirical turning point and subsequently Fellini's trademark lingering and wanderlust.This is self-steering gear, one you can watch very easily and indifferent to the characters' pain, pleasure, grief or joy because Fellini wants only to have some farcical fun at arm's length. As always, even Nino Rota's lush, carnivalesque music is almost incidental, as if it were source music, complete with Fellini's quaint imagery. Really, it is quite a funny movie.

A classic Fellini comedy, with all the atmosphere of a carnival that fans expect. Brunella Bovo is lovely, naive, well-meaning, but lead astray by a philandering playboy. Meanwhile, her new husband seems doomed to appear utterly insane to his family who has come to Rome to meet his blushing bride--suddenly disappeared. Charming, funny, what's not to love? Oh, and Guilietta Masina arrives in her role as the kind and sensual Cabiria--icing on the cake! While certainly not the greatest Fellini film on record, it makes for pleasant viewing. Yes, the behavior of the characters is hardly exemplary, but then, would that be entertaining?

"Our real lives are in our dreams, but sometimes dreams are a fatal abyss."That line above is one of the most beautiful lines I've ever heard in any film. This 1951 comedy feature is free of Fellini's quintessential surrealist vision but filled with the delights of idiosyncratic imagery, genius comical precision, and indisputable humanity. The film opens in Rome, where a newlywed small-town couple is vacationing on their honeymoon. While in Rome, the (very) young bride takes advantage of being near the location where a new film is being shot that stars The White Sheik, a popular film/serial/newspaper icon whom she is secretly infatuated with. While her husband is sleeping, she sneaks off to find the Sheik and give him a drawing she has made of him. Brunella Bovo, who plays the bride, is new to me, but she was absolutely entrancing in her innocence. Trieste's comic expressions are absolutely arresting. Sordi is hilarious as the Sheik, who is about as unromantic a romantic figure as you can imagine. Nino Rota's first score for Fellini is a lot of fun and exceptionally carnivalesque. You can tell by the marriage of music and image that Fellini and Rota had a real treasured creative hit-off with this film, and as most know, Rota scored every Fellini film after "White Sheik" until his death in 1979. This great score has never been released in it's entirety, but the main title theme has appeared on many Rota compilations.An absolutely adorable little film, which seems to have been regrettably ignored by the majority. It's one I will watch many times.

When most people think of Fellini, they think of his films La Strada or La Dolce Vita and 8 1/2, but the director's vast catalogue of films is worth checking out just to see a genius at work. Fellini's early and little known film, The White Sheik proves to be a cinematic gem that not only hints at the director Fellini would become, but also stands on its own as an achievement.Part soap opera (read Mexican soaps) and part romantic comedy, The White Sheik leans towards surrealism and comic book camp (over 30 years before Kevin Smith created DOGMA). The premise of the story is that two newly weds, Vanda Giardino (Bruenella Boro) and her husband Ivan Cavelli (Leopoldo Trieste) honeymoon in Rome where Ivan hopes to make a good impression of his relations. Unfortunately for him, his wife sneaks out of the hotel room so that she can meet her comic book hero, The White Sheik (Alberto Sordi.Shot in black and white, this film is gorgeous and surreal. The actors on the set of The White Sheik come across as gypsy or circus like. They sport tough attitudes and this makes a nice contrast to Vanda's wide-eyed innocence.The White Sheik is technically Fellini's second film, but the first one in which he did not share directing credits. However, he did share writing credits with Michelangelo Antonioni, Ennio Flaiano and Tullio Pinelli. If you are a fan of La Strada and Nights of Cabiria then you must see this film.