Beyond the Rocks (1922), was based on a 1906 novel by romance novelist Elinor Glyn, who helped catapult Clara Bow to international prominence when the actress starred in It (1927), a film adaptation of Glyn's novel. Beyond the Rocks was also an enormous success and featured Swanson, Paramount's biggest star at the time, in her only starring role with Rudolph Valentino. Even before making Beyond the Rocks, however, Swanson and Valentino were already good friends and often rode horses together in the Hollywood hills. At the time, Valentino was less well known, though the release of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921) prior to Beyond the Rocks helped boost his notoriety. The film received an extra publicity boost when Valentino was charged with bigamy for marrying new lover Natacha Rambova before his divorce to actress Jean Acker was official, leading to jail time and a fine for Valentino.
One of the greatest film stars of all time, Valentino was distinguished from other film actors by his exotic, sensual looks which starkly contrasted to the all-American persona of so many other male romantic leads. A favorite of female fans, Valentino was often mocked by men for his exotic clothes and expertise on the dance floor; one Chicago critic even referred to him in print as a "pink powder puff."
Born to a French mother and Italian father in Castellaneta, Italy, he was baptized Rodolfo Alfonzo Raffaelo Pierre Filibert Guglielmi. When he finally made it to Hollywood after stints as a dishwasher, waiter, professional dancer and gigolo, Valentino was often cast in ethnic or villainous roles because of his exotic looks.
His big break came when he met screenwriter June Mathis who recommended Valentino for her film adaptation of Vicente Blasco Ibanez's novel The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Mathis was impressed by Valentino's performance as a gigolo in Eyes of Youth (1919) and recommended the unknown actor for the role of Julio. Valentino's appearance in an erotic tango in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse remains one of the most memorable introductions of an actor to the screen and made Valentino a star. The Sheik (1921), his first film for his new studio, Famous Players-Lasky, confirmed once and for all the actor's seductive, romantic appeal. Despite being only a mediocre film, Valentino made The Sheik a major hit.
Despite his icon status in the history of Hollywood, Valentino had a rocky career, marked by marital woes and malicious gossip. Valentino's last film The Son of the Sheik (1926) opened to rave reviews but on a promotional tour for the film, the actor fell ill with a perforated gastric ulcer. An infection killed him at age 31 on August 23, 1926. In an astounding media event 100,000 fans swarmed to get a glimpse of his casket, sparking riots and the arrival of police officers on the scene. Two of the honorary pallbearers were Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and Charlie Chaplin. Said actor John Gilbert of Valentino, "His loss can never be replaced; there was and can be only one Valentino; a great artist and one of the finest gentlemen it has ever been my privilege to term friend."
As for Gloria Swanson, she became a screen legend in her own right, breaking the mold of the Lillian Gish saints and Theda Bara vamps with her own unique onscreen charisma. She was born Gloria May Josephine Swanson in Chicago and later discovered while taking a tour of Essanay Studios where she started her film career in Mack Sennett slapstick comedies. Swanson became a true screen legend after appearing in a succession of Cecil B. DeMille dramas including Don't Change Your Husband (1919), Male and Female (1919) and The Affairs of Anatole (1921).
Despite phenomenal success as both a producer and star, as in the screen adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's Sadie Thompson (1928), Swanson became a casualty of Hollywood's shift from silents to talkies. Her farewell to the Golden Age of silent film was a starring role as the washed-up silent actress Norma Desmond in Billy Wilder's corrosive portrait of the film industry, Sunset Boulevard (1950). DeMille called her "THE movie stars of all movie stars. She had something that none of the rest of them have."
In Swanson on Swanson, the actress humorously recalled of the filming of Beyond the Rocks and the Hays Office's censorship, "One of the first stipulations of the office was that kisses should run no longer than ten feet of film. So we shot each kiss twice, once for the version to be released in America and once for the European version. Poor Rudy could hardly get his nostrils flaring before the American version was over. Only Europeans and South Americans could see Swanson and Valentino engage in any honest-to-goodness torrid kisses. American fevers were now controlled by a stopwatch."
Long thought to be lost, Beyond the Rocks was rediscovered in 2003 at the Netherlands Filmmuseum with Dutch inter titles (including a title that translated to "Golden Shackles"), where it had been donated along with 2000 cans of film by a film collector. The English inter titles were restored with the help of a list of the original English inter titles and a 32-Page continuity script housed at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills. Director Martin Scorsese has called the rediscovery "a precious gift" and added, "It was rare for two silent stars of the magnitude of Rudolph Valentino and Gloria Swanson to appear in a film together – the ideas of pairing stars became more of a common practice with the coming of sound."
The film discovered in the Netherlands is the export version, and features the prolonged kisses described by Swanson in her autobiography.
Beyond the Rocks director Sam Wood went on to a successful career, helming such prestigious pictures as Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939), The Devil and Miss Jones (1941), and For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943). In one of his less popular appearances, Wood named names at the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings, which might have played a part in film history's memory of Wood as a workman director rather than a true auteur.
Director: Sam Wood
Screenplay: Jack Cunningham, based on the novel by Elinor Glyn
Cinematography: Alfred Gilks
Music: Henny Vrienten (restored version)
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).
BW-81m.
by Felicia Feaster
