A really fine potboiler where Priscilla Dean shines

In A Distant Day, When Instanbul Was At The Edge Of The Desert

Universal Studios - 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, California, USA

Lon Chaney and Priscilla Dean in Outside the Law (1920)

Wallace Beery, Priscilla Dean, Raymond Griffith, and Matt Moore in White Tiger (1923)

James A. Marcus and Anna Q. Nilsson in The Regeneration (1915)

Priscilla Dean in The Virgin of Stamboul (1920)

Wallace Beery, Priscilla Dean, Wheeler Oakman, and Ethel Ritchie in The Virgin of Stamboul (1920)

Priscilla Dean

Wheeler Oakman

Wallace Beery

Tod Browning

William Parker

H.H. Van Loan

Achmet Bey, a Turkish chieftain, catches one of his many wives in adultery and murders her lover. Throwing aside the cuckolding wife, he abducts his harem an innocent girl. However, a brave American who loves her comes to her rescue.

The Virgin of Stamboul

&quot;The Virgin of Stamboul&quot; (1920) is a marvelous Tod Browning directed film starring Priscilla Dean, Wheeler Oakman, Wallace Beery and many others. This was Browning&apos;s fifth directorial outing with Dean (there were nine altogether), his second with Oakman (there were three altogether), and first with Beery (two more followed). Here we watch the &quot;Oriental nastiness&quot; that possibly can occur in Stamboul when the chief wife in a large harem of Sheik Achmet Hamid commits adultery with an American. Sheik Achmet swiftly knifes the American when he catches his wife in the embrace of her lover, then casts off his wife to go out into the street on her own. Wallace Beery is perfectly cast as the Sheik, showing only lust throughout the film and not a redeeming characteristic about him. Meanwhile, we&apos;ve been introduced to another American, seemingly a foreign service officer who has been allowed to come into the city from his desert troopings to conduct some business. He meets Sari (Dean), a street waif, a beggar, who is a wild child of the street, with few scruples, but one who has only one wish - to be able to visit inside the mosque, and there to learn how to pray! Of course, no women are allowed in the mosque, for, women have no souls! This is the set up for the rest of the film. Only now, Sheik Achmet Hamid goes on the lookout, the prowl, for a replacement for his former chief wife. He&apos;s already seen the &quot;desert lily&quot; Sari before, and now he lusts after her, only so does the American, the officer, Wheeler Oakman - - - and she seemingly for the American officer, too.

The photography by William Fildew (he collaborated with Browning as cinematographer eleven times) is simply gorgeous! There is a constancy of nearly claustrophobic clusters of people and buildings in crowded streets and clubs and places of business that will seem almost noirish to any who love the film noir cinema of the late 30s, early 40s, all the way into early 1950s. It captures well the American idea of what the center of Constantinople, Stamboul, Turkey had to have been like in 1920. Stamboul was the name which represented the central part of Constantinople until the middle 1930s when the Turkish name, Istanbul, was finally formally chosen to be the name of the entire city.

This set up, so to speak, for the rest of the film is a beautifully done introduction, and takes up nearly one-half of the entire film as it remains. Yes, there are a number of missing frames, even parts of some scenes. There is one scene in particular, though, that remains - a scene of birds being shooed from a roof, all of which come down right on Priscilla Dean who wonderfully laughs off the entire entourage of beautiful desert birds, many of which have landed on her shoulders and in her hands. She even kisses one over and over, lips to beak!! It&apos;s a superb scene, and Dean is spectacular in it, all of it filmed like a dreamlike sequence. It doesn&apos;t have anything to do with the plot, but it adds immeasurably to the pleasure of the film.

Now the film begins, and from here on out the plot is nothing more than a &quot;B&quot; Western in a Middle Eastern setting, or, as the film says, &quot;East versus West&quot;. Oakman versus Beery - and Dean as the prize. If you were to be curious how Browning would have filmed a Western per se, this is how he would have done it, only it would probably have John Ford settings and cinematography, but closed in with some psychological/possibly horror plot that makes the scenery tertiary to the characters and plot, not an addition.

The finale to &quot;The Virgin of Stamboul&quot; is a fight to the finish with troopers fighting with the Sheik&apos;s men, nothing more than cowboys versus the Indians, and it is almost pat as plot, but it is really fun to watch, worthy of popcorn and soda on the spot. As much as Beery in particular, but also Oakman, lead the plot to a conclusion, and are really good at their parts, Priscilla Dean is so fun to watch as to make the viewer wish she were in all the scenes all the time. She&apos;s fabulous! A great actress whose career petered out by the beginning of the 30s, she&apos;d been an actress basically from her birth: both her parents were stage actors, and she made her first films when she was only 14. She&apos;s always a pleasure to watch. It&apos;s only a shame that more of her films don&apos;t survive. Very few do.

"The Virgin of Stamboul" (1920) is a marvelous Tod Browning directed film starring Priscilla Dean, Wheeler Oakman, Wallace Beery and many others. This was Browning's fifth directorial outing with Dean (there were nine altogether), his second with Oakman (there were three altogether), and first with Beery (two more followed). Here we watch the "Oriental nastiness" that possibly can occur in Stamboul when the chief wife in a large harem of Sheik Achmet Hamid commits adultery with an American. Sheik Achmet swiftly knifes the American when he catches his wife in the embrace of her lover, then casts off his wife to go out into the street on her own. Wallace Beery is perfectly cast as the Sheik, showing only lust throughout the film and not a redeeming characteristic about him. Meanwhile, we've been introduced to another American, seemingly a foreign service officer who has been allowed to come into the city from his desert troopings to conduct some business. He meets Sari (Dean), a street waif, a beggar, who is a wild child of the street, with few scruples, but one who has only one wish - to be able to visit inside the mosque, and there to learn how to pray! Of course, no women are allowed in the mosque, for, women have no souls! This is the set up for the rest of the film. Only now, Sheik Achmet Hamid goes on the lookout, the prowl, for a replacement for his former chief wife. He's already seen the "desert lily" Sari before, and now he lusts after her, only so does the American, the officer, Wheeler Oakman - - - and she seemingly for the American officer, too.

The photography by William Fildew (he collaborated with Browning as cinematographer eleven times) is simply gorgeous! There is a constancy of nearly claustrophobic clusters of people and buildings in crowded streets and clubs and places of business that will seem almost noirish to any who love the film noir cinema of the late 30s, early 40s, all the way into early 1950s. It captures well the American idea of what the center of Constantinople, Stamboul, Turkey had to have been like in 1920. Stamboul was the name which represented the central part of Constantinople until the middle 1930s when the Turkish name, Istanbul, was finally formally chosen to be the name of the entire city.

This set up, so to speak, for the rest of the film is a beautifully done introduction, and takes up nearly one-half of the entire film as it remains. Yes, there are a number of missing frames, even parts of some scenes. There is one scene in particular, though, that remains - a scene of birds being shooed from a roof, all of which come down right on Priscilla Dean who wonderfully laughs off the entire entourage of beautiful desert birds, many of which have landed on her shoulders and in her hands. She even kisses one over and over, lips to beak!! It's a superb scene, and Dean is spectacular in it, all of it filmed like a dreamlike sequence. It doesn't have anything to do with the plot, but it adds immeasurably to the pleasure of the film.

Now the film begins, and from here on out the plot is nothing more than a "B" Western in a Middle Eastern setting, or, as the film says, "East versus West". Oakman versus Beery - and Dean as the prize. If you were to be curious how Browning would have filmed a Western per se, this is how he would have done it, only it would probably have John Ford settings and cinematography, but closed in with some psychological/possibly horror plot that makes the scenery tertiary to the characters and plot, not an addition.

The finale to "The Virgin of Stamboul" is a fight to the finish with troopers fighting with the Sheik's men, nothing more than cowboys versus the Indians, and it is almost pat as plot, but it is really fun to watch, worthy of popcorn and soda on the spot. As much as Beery in particular, but also Oakman, lead the plot to a conclusion, and are really good at their parts, Priscilla Dean is so fun to watch as to make the viewer wish she were in all the scenes all the time. She's fabulous! A great actress whose career petered out by the beginning of the 30s, she'd been an actress basically from her birth: both her parents were stage actors, and she made her first films when she was only 14. She's always a pleasure to watch. It's only a shame that more of her films don't survive. Very few do.

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The Virgin of Stamboul

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