Rudolph Valentino returns to the role that made him a superstar in this tongue-in-cheek sequel to his 1921 hit The Sheik. Here Valentino plays the son of Sheik Ahmed, his character from the first film (he also plays the older Sheik wearing age makeup.) The younger Ahmed defies his father's wishes to woo the alluring Yasmin, a dancer from a disreputable background. When Ahmed is kidnapped by thugs seeking his father's fortune, he is tricked into thinking Yasmin has betrayed him. In reality, she is a helpless pawn of the bandits. After escaping and learning the truth, Ahmed enlists his famous father's help in rescuing the beautiful girl from the vile cutthroats.

The Son of the Sheik was not only one of the first movie sequels, it was also, tragically, one of the first films to have its box office goosed by a star's death. Following several "artistic" ventures that did not connect with audiences (usually supervised by his former wife Natacha Rambova) the stardom of Rudolph Valentino was in decline. United Artists, who had recently signed Valentino to their roster, decided a sequel to his greatest success, 1921's The Sheik, was the best way to jumpstart Rudy's career. Despite his dislike of the Sheik image, Valentino, in desperate need of a hit after his previous films Monsieur Beaucaire and A Sainted Devil (both 1924) bombed, agreed. Shooting took place in the Yuma, Arizona desert, substituting for the Sahara dunes - with conditions not that much better than the actual Sahara; property man Irving Sandler told Kevin Brownlow stories of 110 degree days and Vilma Banky putting her spoon into a bowl of what she thought was blackberry jam but actually turned out to be flies. These extreme conditions most likely affected Valentino's health for the worse. In the summer of 1926, The Son of the Sheik began being rolled out in major cities before it went into wide release. While promoting the film in New York, Rudy collapsed in his hotel room and was quickly rushed to the hospital. After emergency surgery for a perforated ulcer, Valentino died on August 23, 1926. The Son of the Sheik went into wide release on September 5, its box office magnified by unheard-of numbers of female fans rushing to the cinemas to see their fantasy object's final bow. However, the star's untimely demise was not the only cause for its success - film historian William K. Everson called The Son of The Sheik Valentino's "best film - lush, exciting, genuinely erotic, (and) everything that the rather crude The Sheik should have been and wasn't." The film would be re-released to theaters many times, even after the advent of sound. This version of The Son of the Sheik is the 1937 Artcinema Associates re-release with music by Arthur H. Guttman and Gerard Carbonara.