The Eagle is Rudolph Valentino as a masked avenger in Tsarist Russia, a Robin Hood figure who fights injustice with a sword and a smile.
The Eagle (1925), directed by Clarence Brown and based on Alexander Pushkin’s Dubrovsky, stars Valentino as Vladimir Dubrovsky, a Russian officer who becomes the masked Eagle after his father is ruined by a corrupt nobleman. Disguised, he infiltrates the nobleman’s household and falls in love with his daughter.
Valentino’s Eagle is dashing, witty and romantic, and the film’s action, duels, chases and disguises, gives him a hero in the Fairbanks mould, but with Valentino’s own intensity. His scenes with Vilma Banky are tender and playful, and the film was a critical and popular success.
It is a signature role because it is Valentino’s most successful swashbuckler, and because the image in this post, Valentino as the Eagle, became one of his most famous portraits.