A 1922 Rudolph Valentino silent movie classic has been found after being considered lost for almost 75 years. The Dutch national film archive discovered the copy of melodrama Beyond the Rocks in a private collection left to the Filmmuseum. The museum was given the collection of more than 2,000 film canisters in 2000 after the death of a collector in the town of Haarlem.
It looked as if Beyond the Rocks had disappeared without trace. All that remained of the film was a one-minute fragment. This piece of film has been in the Dutch national film archive’s collection since 1976. So, while cataloguing over two thousand film cans donated by a film collector, it was a great surprise to the staff when they chanced upon a reel of Beyond the Rocks. In the months that followed, they found and identified all the missing reels of the film. As a result, this famous silent film can finally be restored to its full splendour. Archivists had taken such a long time to find the Valentino movie because the deceased collector had organised the films in an unusual way. Because he was afraid the movie might get stolen, he stored the seven reels in different warehouses.
For almost 75 years, film historians and archivists have been searching for a print of Beyond the Rocks, a classic melodrama about an impossible love. It is the only film from the silent-film period (1895 - 1928) that stars the two Hollywood icons Rudolph Valentino and Gloria Swanson. This is why Beyond the Rocks represents a truly unique moment in film history.
The restored print of Sam Wood’s classic will be screened during the second edition of the Filmmuseum Biennial which will take place from 6 to 10 April 2005 in Amsterdam. A new score will be composed for this world première of the restored version of Beyond the Rocks or Gouden Boeien (Golden Shackles, the title under which the film was once released in The Netherlands). Henny Vrienten will compose the score.
Rudolph Valentino was born in 1895 to a middle-class Italian family. He moved to New York in 1913 and became a huge star in the early 1920s for his steamy romantic performances. He died in 1926 following complications from a perforated ulcer.
Gloria Swanson, best known for her portrayal of Norma Desmond in Billy Wilder’s 1950 Sunset Boulevard, was one of the most popular and influential female stars of the 1920s.
Beyond the Rocks was based on a book written by Elinor Glyn in 1906. An edition published by The Maculay Company in New York in 1922 has 327 pages and 3 black & white photos from the film and one publicity photo of Valentino and the author, in a red rough-leather-textured cloth cover with black lettering and a small crown design.
Plot
To please her father, Theodora Fitzgerald marries Josiah Brown, an elderly millionaire. When she slips over a precipice while climbing the Alps, Theodora is saved by Lord Bracondale. They meet again in Paris, fall in love but agree to part forever. They do meet, however, at the residence of Lady Anningford in London. Again, Bracondale declares his love. She resists him, but sends him a note confessing her feelings. Morella Winmarleigh, who loves Bracondale, redirects a letter for Brown to Bracondale and the love note to Brown. After a confrontation, Brown decides to sacrifice himself for his wife and accompanies an exploring party to Arabia. His party is attacked by bandits and he is fatally wounded just as Bracondale, Theodora, her father and an escort arrive. Before he dies, Brown wishes the lovers happiness.
Cast
Gloria Swanson [Theodora Fitzgerald], Rudolph Valentino [Lord Bracondale], Edythe Chapman [Lady Bracondale], Alec B. Francis [Captain Fitzgerald], Robert Bolder [Josiah Brown], Gertrude Astor [Morella Winmarleigh], Mabel Van Buren [Mrs. McBride], Helen Dunbar [Lady Ada Fitzgerald], Raymond Brathwayt [Sir Patrick Fitzgerald], Frank R. Butler [Lord Wensleydon], June Elvidge [Lady Anningford]
More information about the movie
Famous Players-Lasky Corporation production, distributed by Paramount Pictures Corporation. Produced by Jesse L. Lasky. Scenario by Jack Cunningham, from the novel Beyond the Rocks by Elinor Glyn. Assistant director Osmond Borradaile. Cinematography by Alfred Gilks. Presented by Jesse L. Lasky. Released 7 May 1922. Standard 35mm spherical 1.37:1 format.
Sam Wood
When American director Sam Wood first reported to Cecil B. De Mille as an assistant in 1915, Wood had already dabbled in real estate and acted on-stage under the name of Chad Applegate. A solo director by 1919, Wood worked throughout the ’20s directing some of Paramount’s biggest stars, among them Gloria Swanson and Wallace Reid. He began his long association with MGM in 1927, working with personalities as varied as Marion Davies, Clark Gable, Marie Dressler, and Jimmy Durante. He guided the Marx Brothers through their two most profitable films, A Night at the Opera (1935) and A Day at the Races (1937), and turned out one of the most accomplished sentimental dramas ever made in Hollywood, Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939). Hopping from studio to studio in the ’40s, Wood directed Ginger Rogers through her Oscar-winning performance in Kitty Foyle (1940), successfully transferred Thornton Wilder’s highly theatrical Our Town (1940) to the screen (even the studio-imposed happy ending worked), and assembled the quintessential baseball biopic, The Pride of the Yankees (1942).
Sources
Lost Valentino film discovered
Filmmuseum Rediscovers Lost Film Starring Valentino
Silent Era: PSFL: Beyond the Rocks (1922)
Beyond the Rocks
Sam Wood Biography
