The Eagle, 1925 film starring Rudolph Valentino

The Eagle is a 1925 American silent film directed by Clarence Brown and starring Rudolph Valentino, Vilma Bánky, and Louise Dresser. Based on the novel Dubrovsky by Alexander Pushkin, the film is about a lieutenant in the Russian army who catches the eye of Czarina Catherine II. After he rejects her advances and flees, she puts out a warrant for his arrest, dead or alive. When he learns that his father has been persecuted and killed, he dons a black mask and becomes an outlaw. Prints currently exist in the film holdings of EmGee Film Library and in private film collections. Black Eagle does not exist in the novel and was inspired by the performance of Douglas Fairbanks as Zorro in The Mark of Zorro.