On the whole, John Gilbert's starring vehicles at Fox were not as beneficial to him professionally as his films at MGM. Arabian Love was an exception, but Gilbert was required to emulate another popular star to make the film "click". Essentially a Valentino picture without Valentino, the film casts Gilbert as a young American who, after killing the man who disgraced his sister, joins a band of Arab thieves. Several convenient coincidences later, Gilbert falls in love with the widow Barbara Bedford of the man he has killed. Though Arabian Love proved an enormous step forward in the career John Gilbert, the painfully self-conscious star steered clear of imitations in his later work. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi