The White Sheik

While every country has its body of the true-to-life-and-how-other-people-do-it kind of romance literature, Italian love magazines called "fumetti," come adorned with countless real life pictures. These picture books show romantic adventure played out in photographic flesh as well as mere words. Written and photographed in the middle of the week, they hit the newsstands on Friday. By Saturday all Italy is ready for the next installment.

The White Sheik is a mercilessly funny exploitation of these magazines. Wanda, one of the exploitees, has been reading all the "fumetti" for years, but of all the heroes, the White Sheik is her favorite. On her honeymoon in Rome with a healthy Italian villager, she takes off in search of the White Sheik to whom she has already written under the name of "Bamba Appassionata" (Passionate Doll). Somehow Wanda gets thrown into proximity with a secretary who advises her that "To dream is to live!", and then a moving van, and then many pseudo-Arabs and neo-Moorish hordes, and, finally, the White Sheik's own secluded sail boat. In her semi-conscious wake her distressed husband similarly encounters many adventures including the shower she had left running in making her get-away, an irate concierage, imperturbable relatives, and an Italian galloping trombone band. In an air of intensified pseudo-coherence the couple reunites and, to the tone of widly churning music, the movie canters to a resolution atop St. Peter's Cathedral.

Except for poor Wanda who is an appealingly devoted fan as played by Brunella Boro, none of the people really are people. They are examples. The White Sheik himself (Alberto Sordi) combines aspects of Mario Lanza, Liberace, and Fernando Lamas in a gloriously dripping mixture. Wanda's husband is played, sometimes ferociously, sometimes stoically, by Leopoldo Triesti. Hordes of Moorish monsters also appear to attack the White Sheik along with relatives to attack Wanda's husband; and these creatures add motion to the commotion.

There is only one joke to the movie, but it is a funny one. Director Frederico Fellini is an adept at catching his characters at their ridiculousest to make it funnier. Nine-tenths of the movie is corn, and all of it is a pleasure to watch. There is also a short concerning "Inside the Kinsey Report" which is not half so amusing, and there is another miscellaneous short.