Part 3 - Valentino, 'El Vasco', and the '4 Horsemen' Tango
The Conception and Filming of the '4 Horsemen' Tango
The most potent evidence of Valentino's experience of the tango exists on film, in 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypseitself. Much as the hand of a teacher or favourite artist can be detected in the work of a painter, a dance can betray the evidence of different instructors, styles, and methods. Extracting the metaphorical DNA from the 4 Horsemen tango, what can we find?
The choice of Valentino as the Argentinian ne'er-do-well Julio Desnoyers is one of Hollywood's most serendipitous pieces of casting. Throughout Vincente Blasco Ibañez' novel, Julio is portrayed as a human embodiment of tango: born in Argentina, made decadent in Paris, rendered irrelevant by the war, and finally destroyed by it. Scenarist June Mathis and director Rex Ingram cannily distill this into screen fare, adding to the French tango scenes that exist in the novel another tango, set in La Boca, the once upmarket dockside barrio of Buenos Aires that was given over to immigrants after the Yellow Fever epidemic of the 1870s.
Evidently, this new sequence was evoked by Julio's observation upon arriving to Paris: "Julio Desnoyers, upon meeting this dance of his childhood in full swing in Paris, devoted himself to it with the confidence that an old love inspires. Who could have foretold that when, as a student, he was frequenting the lowest dance halls in Buenos Aires, watched by the police, that he was really serving an apprenticeship to Glory?"
From 'Motion Picture News', a still from 'The Pulse of Life' (1917). With its chalked graffiti and pasted-on pinups, the set at least superficially resembles that of the La Boca tavern in '4 Horsemen'.
Rex Ingram later claimed responsibility for creating the La Boca sequence. "When he came to rehearsing the tango, Rudy did so well that I made up my mind to expand this phase of the story. I [used] a sequence in a Universal picture I had made years ago. The sequence showed an adventurous youth going into a Bowery dive and taking the dancer, after he had floored her partner. Bones and marrow I transposed this action to South America.'
The film in question, The Pulse of Life (1917), is lost, so we cannot compare the two, but authorship of the sequence undoubtedly lays in more than one pair of hands. Scenarist June Mathis and author Vincente Blasco Ibañez met to discuss the projected film adaptation of 4 Horsemen, and trade magazines reported that the tango formed a particular point of discussion. Collectively, Ibañez and Mathis would have understood there was no way of remaining true to the essence of the story without a detailed Buenos Aires tango sequence. Once filmed, the scene was also amongst those sent to Ibañez for approval, which he reportedly gave heartily. Clearly, all concerned realised that tango would be as central to the movie as it was to the novel.
Questions of 'Authenticity'
The notion of 'authentic' tango costuming - actually a theatrical conceit - had emerged in Paris as early as 1913. The male dancer here, Bernabé Simarra, was Argentinian and highly respected - nevertheless, his costume is an even more fantastical riff on the gaucho than Valentino's. Once again, 'authenticity' proves a slippery concept.
Although many have dwelt on the inaccuracies of the La Boca tango sequence, there is much that it gets almost right. A gaucho such as Julio would have held a poncho over his arm or shoulder. He would have possessed a rebenque (wooden-handled whip or riding crop), and kept a faćon (long, sabre-like knife) tucked in to the back of his leather belt, which would have been ornamented with medallions and prevented from chafing him with a tied, woven undersash or faja.
Even if certain elements are not quite right (the Andalusian hat and shirt were especially ridiculed), an attempt has been made towards accuracy - more so than might have been considered necessary, given that fantastical 'authentic' tango costuming had long since been established in the minds of the public.
Likewise, an orquestra tipica comprising guitar, violins and piano might have been acceptable in a smaller bar; indeed, the lack of the characteristic bandoneon may even be intended to link the sequence to the period of the unrefined tango rufianesco. Small details abound, such as the old gaucho sipping yerba maté from a bombilla, indicating that someone on the production knew enough about the real Buenos Aires as to create a heightened version of it.
Rex Ingram was aware of the need to maintain a balance between between veracity and theatricality: "Had I been literal in the way I handled it, the effect would not have been anything as nearly realistic," he said. "The signs on the wall, the types of men, in fact all the bits of atmosphere in the place were the results of painstaking efforts to get 'colour' and local atmosphere into the set.' Where the details of this 'local atmosphere' came from, he does not say. Trade magazines reported that a Frenchman, Jacques d'Auray, was consulted on the scenes set in France (he also played a small role in the film), but if an Argentinian was employed for the same purpose in the La Boca scene, their name is yet to be discovered.
Valentino and Alice Terry perform tango for a posed promotional still for '4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse'. Magazine reports claiming that Valentino himself had taught her the dance for the film are probably accurate.
Nor has any choreographer been credited with the 4 Horsemen tango, and it is reasonable to accept Ingram's inference that Valentino performed the deed himself. Valentino thus may be considered a fourth 'author' of this sequence.
It would have been a fairly loose choreography, as it was important that the dance appear spontaneous whilst again demonstrating the theatricality required of a film. As an exhibition dancer, Valentino would have been familiar with such a balancing act, and it is possible that he suggested or included choreographic elements that might help bring out the meaning of the script.
The more combative aspects of the sequence may have been influenced by the valse chaloupé, or 'danse Apache' (pronounced 'apash', and relating not to American Indians but to a nickname for Parisian toughs) - a violent, histrionic French dance that Valentino had performed alongside Bonnie Glass earlier in his career. He had also played an Apache dancer in a now-lost film,A Rogue's Romance(1919).
Gauchos demonstrating the duello criollo, early 1900s (photo by Frank Carpenter).
The sequence also carries an evident debt to the real-life tradition of the dance de desafío, or dance battle, which may itself have been inspired by the duello criollo, a ritualised knife battle between gauchos. Valentino would later fight one onscreen in another lost film, A Sainted Devil(1924).
A dance de desafío unfolded much as seen in the film, and El Vasco had undoubtedly indulged in them. In 1915 he would challenge El Cachafaz himself to one (and lose). In one of the most famous such battles, between El Cachafaz and El Pardo Santillán, a supporter of El Cachafaz had thrown a fiyingo, (small, thin knife) into the dance floor, where it quivered menacingly as El Cachafaz danced around it (and won).
This is not the sort of information that one would have gleaned in a New York dance studio. Was the battle genuinely lifted from The Pulse of Life; a suggestion of Ibañez' - or had Valentino, perhaps, heard of such battles, or talked to a witness or participant in them, of which Casimiro Aín was undoubtedly one?
Also absent from both the novel and The Pulse of Lifeis the clash between the Parisian and Argentine styles of tango. When Julio approaches Beatrice and her partner, she is being led in an almost comically exaggerated version of the French tango, complete with stiff, outstretched arm, prettified adornos, and bobbing gait - breaking every rule of 'good' tango dancing that Valentino would have studied so assiduously.
Compare, for example, with this excerpt from a 1913 episode of Louis Feuillade's serial, Fantomas, set in Paris:
The Performance
Enlargement of detail on a still from '4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse'. A poster advertises (in Spanish) 'Miss Beatrice Dominguez, premier dancer of the tango in South America, TONIGHT.'
One important point that cannot be noticed by the casual viewer: Beatrice Dominguez plays herself in 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse, or at least a professional dancer named 'Beatrice Dominguez,' as revealed by a close examination of set stills.
The existence of this poster is inauthentic to the setting - unlike in New York, where 'Signor Rodolfo' played second fiddle to Bonnie Glass and Joan Sawyer, the macho world of the tango promoted male dancers above their female partners, who were sometimes not even billed (it was typical that one of Casimiro Aín's was known simply as 'La Vasca'). Nonetheless, it is a significant detail: Beatrice is not just some regular at the tavern, but a professional. Is her partner to be understood as a professional also?
With this knowledge, what do we make of Julio's intervention? It is presumptuous enough to cut in on a couple enjoying a casual dance - but to interrupt a performance and replace one of the performers, indicating his scorn for the whole concept of a performed rather than spontaneous tango, is something else again.
This only serves to make Julio's motivation clearer: he is enraged not just by Dominguez' rejection, but by her acceptance and promotion of a bastardised version of the tango. Her partner appears to reach for a pistol in his belt; this too can be interpreted as a cultural insult, for firearms were scorned by gauchos as dishonourable and even effeminate. Julio strikes the partner with his rebenque, and seizes Beatrice, as if to say: enough of this nonsense! I'll show you how to dance a real tango! Even if they are not aware of the details, the audience are clearly intended to realise the difference in the two styles, and to find the first style lacking.
We can observe by the way the dancers move that the tempo has changed. They are dancing to the old-style music of the tango criollo, heavily influenced by the Cuban habanera, with a jauntier, more syncopated feel than the more languid 'el cuatro' tango of the later 1920s (the milonga is its closest modern-day equivalent) - La Morocha perhaps, or Angel Villoldo's famous El Choclo, already one of the best-known and most recorded tangos, and one that was often recommended for use by beginners in tango instruction manuals of the day.
Because cutting interrupts the flow of the dance (a matter of some frustration to accompanists), it is impossible to fit any one existing recording to the picture, making it difficult to confirm which song (or songs) were used - if indeed a recorded song was played rather than the live accompaniment of the band. The fact that the sequence appears to be composed of at least two different takes both complicates matters and provides a few possible clues to its composition, of which more later.
'El Cachafaz' with his most celebrated partner, Carmencita Calderón.
Valentino holds his hand high but his elbow flexible. His lead is emphatic, his grip around the waist strong and declarative, the embrace close. It is intended to be read as an emphatically Argentinian tango. In Paris and New York, the 'new' tango emphasised a decent distance between the dancers; Vernon and Irene Castle even espoused a version where the partners do not touch at all. From his first step, Julio shows us exactly how he feels about that.
Valentino's tango is rich in the characteristic quebradas, or hanging hesitations, of the early Argentinian style. Initially, embellishments are few, aside from the oddly acrobatic and inauthentic lifts that occur around halfway through the dance (we can almost hear Ingram ordering Valentino 'Do something spectacular!').
A cut in the middle of this move, and its subsequent repetition, suggests that it was filmed several times for maximum effect. The change in camera angle may be intended to give a better view of the dancers' footwork - or it may signal that this was the point at which Ingram, increasingly impressed by Valentino's performance, decided to extend the tango sequence, dropping in an additional section that features some more complex moves - several elegant molinettes with media lunas and sacadas (and one rather less elegant stumble) amidst what is, up to that point, a fairly straightforward series of walks and quebradas.
A staged still which portrays an unfamilar stance that does not appear in the finished film. Elsewhere, in a series of posed instructional dance photos, Valentino referred to it as the 'Castellane Open Step' which, given his birthplace in Castellaneta, Italy, may indicate it was his own creation.
We return to the initial camera angle - and possibly, the less complex tango that was originally conceived, and the dance ends simply, with a series of taconeos and a rather understated resolución, marking the 'chan-chan', or typical two-note ending of the tango song.
The taconeos (heel and toe taps and stamps) are especially significant - this was a move, borrowed probably from flamenco, that did not form part of the vocabulary of the tango a la francesca. It is an explicitly Argentinian move.
Aside from the more theatrical flourishes, there is not so very much about this tango that would be out of place on a dance floor in Buenos Aires, and evidence of steps that would have been far more common there than in the thés dansant of Paris or New York. Much like Valentino's costuming, there is enough that is right to overlook many of the parts that are not - and to wonder who was responsible for the former.
An Argentinian Tango?
Casimiro Aín and an early partner (probably Mlle Jasmine), circa early 1920s.
How close does the 4 Horsemen tango hew to the 'authentic' Argentinian style of the guarda vieja? It is hard to give a definitive answer. So little early (pre-1912) tango was preserved on film that even the true historical appearance of the canyengue remains a matter of debate. Unfortunately, the only widely accessible footage of Casimiro Aín dates to later in his career and is unlikely to be representative of his early style.
We can observe his dancing stance in photos - it is noticeably similar to Valentino's - and judge his statements. Aín described his own style as consciously theatrical and rich in quebradas and media lunas, both of which feature heavily in Valentino's tango.
We can also look to Ain's contemporaries such as El Cachafaz, and find the comparison quite agreeable. The below example, from the 1933 Argentinian film Tango! is the best known footage of El Cachafaz. Rather like Valentino's lift, we can imagine him either being instructed to add a little pizzazz, or feeling moved to add some himself, with his dramatic kick at 0:20; a move that would never be attempted on a crowded dance floor.
In short: Valentino was definitely aware of the stylistic differences of the Parisian and Argentine tangos, and that he took at least some of his cues from the guarda vieja cannot be ruled out.
The Other '4 Horsemen' Tango
A still from the second, less well remembered tango sequence from '4 Horsemen'.
Such was the impact of the initial tango sequence that it is easy to forget that it is not the only one in 4 Horsemen. 'The world was dancing,' an intertitle informs us. 'Paris had succumbed to the mad rhythm of the Argentine tango.' Julio is now in the City of Lights, attending a thé dansant with his French lover, Marguerite.
At the time of the film's release, the Paris tango sequence received more publicity than the La Boca sequence, with much emphasis on its authenticity, its lavish staging, and the fact that, by now, tango had fallen so far out of fashion as to require a concerted search for qualified dancers.
As Marguerite, Alice Terry is clad in the unmistakable uniform of the Parisian tango dancer - a turban hat with an elaborate aigrette, long draped skirt (to camouflage any indecently close entwining of the limbs), and the floaty, fur-trimmed garment known as the 'blouse-tango' which, if the film were in colour, would undoubtedly feature the shade of orange that an enterprising French fabric merchant had dubbed 'couleur Tango'.
As for Julio, he dances an immaculate tango a la francesca - a prettified, liso (smooth, or bland) version of the dance of his youth, devoid of ostentatious moves, perfectly embodying Ibañez's description: 'in abbreviated jacket and expansive shirt bosom, with his small, girlish feet encased in high heeled patent leathers with white tops, [Julio] danced gravely, thoughtfully, silently, like a mathematician working out a problem, under the lights that shed bluish tones upon his plastered, glossy locks." He has become exactly what he scorned in 'Beatrice Dominguez' and her partner: a dancer-for-hire, performing a pretty, unobtrusive tango with only superficial connections to the raw battle of wits in which he indulged in La Boca.
Both of the tangos in 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse suggest that someone associated with the production knew more of the subtleties and controversies in the world of tango than is often given credit. It may have been Vincente Blasco Ibañez, June Mathis, Jacques d'Auray, an unnamed Argentinian consultant - but it is also possible that Valentino himself played a part, having personally witnessed the development of the dance in both Paris and New York, and possibly learned elements of it from those even more intimately involved in its development than he.