COBRA

Rodrigo Torriani (Rudolph Valentino) is an Italian nobleman, a fascinating libertine whose Achilles heel is women. Invited by his friend Jack Dorning, he agrees to travel to New York as an antiquities expert. Jack’s wife Elise, his former love, reveals to the Italian count that she still loves him. But Rodrigo, not wanting to betray his friend, refuses any meeting with the young woman. The hotel where their meeting should have taken place is consumed by a fire that night and Elise dies. Rodrigo is desperate to be accepted by Mary Drake, Jack’s secretary, but after Elise’s death, she is only interested in Jack. Rodrigo decides to return to Europe. The film ends with Rodrigo saluting the Statue of Liberty as he leaves the United States. During his brief and meteoric career, of which Cobra is a milestone, Valentino owed much of his success to his beauty and the magnetism of his face. He was one of the first male sex symbols to be created by the cinema, quickly becoming – perhaps because of his early death – an icon destined to enter and remain in the collective memory.