Courtesy of Moving Image Communications

After making the unusual and ambitious The Man Without Desire (1923), Adrian Brunel was not given the opportunity to direct another feature film until Blighty (1926). In the intervening years, Brunel made a number of low-budget burlesques and short films that have been feted for their wit, playfulness and self-referential experiments with form.

Shimmy Sheik, Two-Chinned Chow and Yes, We Have No - ! (all 1923) receive no mention in Brunel's autobiography, suggesting that he found them less successful than his later burlesques such as Crossing the Great Sagrada (1924) and The Pathetic Gazette (1924). However, their puns, silly jokes and light-hearted references to European filmmaking styles are pure Brunel. Shimmy Sheik is set 'in Stamboul', its athletic hero Shem-el-Nessim is a follower of the cult of Fizik-el-Jerks, and the slave master refuses to part with the beautiful Rahat Lakhoum for "less than 1,000 bags of peanuts".

Like Two-Chinned Chow and Yes, We Have No - !, Shimmy Sheik draws upon German animator Lotte Reiniger's silhouette technique, replacing cut-out figures with live actors. Despite deliberately undermining and spoofing the romantic, fairytale-style of Reiniger's films, Shimmy Sheik features some beautifully intricate sets, with ornate furniture and curving foliage delicately framing the actors in this 'tale of Turkish delight'.

Nathalie Morris

Click titles to see or read more