Even by the humbler standards of a Republic comedy/romance/exotic adventure, this film is rather a chore to sit through. In fact, I kept on watching it in the expectation that it might improve. To my surprise, it didn't! Republic usually packs in a great final reel, but not in this case. If anything the movie gets worse – less believable, less entertaining, less adventuresome. I'll admit it's never exactly boring, because we keep on hoping it will improve and that both the screenwriters, Adele Buffington and Gordon Kahn, plus director Irving Pichel will finally come good. At this stage, we've given up on Ramon Novarro but we keep hoping that Lola Lane will do something exciting and that Gene Lockhart will say something that's really funny. No such luck. Despite much location filming and a superb sepia-tinted print, the sheik is just as boring and uninteresting at the end of the movie as he was at the beginning. Not Novarro's fault! He tries hard to breathe a bit of life into the proceedings but the time-wasting script, the corny décor and Pichel's dead boring direction, defeat him. Available on a superb Alpha DVD.
Review of The Sheik Steps Out
