Reception
Upon its release, Valentino was a commercial and critical failure. The film garnered mixed reviews, most generally negative. The Village Voice called the film "so embarrassingly and extensively bad that it achieves a kind of excruciating consistency with the rest of his career." Charles Champlin of The Los Angeles Times dismissed the film as "superficial and silly".
The majority of the negative criticism stemmed from Russell's blending of fact and fiction. Russell defended his actions stating, "I only want to be accurate up to a point. I can be as inaccurate as I want-it makes no difference to me. I'm writing a novel. My films are novels, based on a person's life, and a novel has a point of view."
Despite its general negative reception, some critics and scholars liked and respected the film. Russell later stated that he would rather forget Valentino.
The film was later included in John J. B. Wilson's 2005 book The Official Razzie Movie Guide.
Read more about this topic: Valentino (1977 Film)
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