Lost Valentino/Swanson Film "Beyond The Rocks" Discovered
By Rich Drees

     The Netherlands Filmmuseum, the Dutch national film archives, has announced that it has recently uncovered a complete print of the 1922 silent film Beyond The Rocks, which had been presumed lost for decades, the museum announced Saturday April 17, 2004.

     "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," states the Filmmuseum's press release. "It is the only film from the silent-film period 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 film was discovered among over 2,000 film canisters bequeathed to the archive by a private film collector following his death in 2000. One reel of the film was discovered by the archive staff while cataloging the collection. However, it took several months to fully search the collection and determine that the museum did indeed hold a complete print of the film. The film is reportedly in good condition with only about two minutes of footage showing real damage. Previously, only a minute's worth of footage from Beyond The Rocks was known to exist. The Filmmuseum has held this fragment since 1976.

     The film stars Gloria Swanson as Theodora Fitzgerald, a young woman forced into a loveless marriage with a millionaire (Alec B. Francis) but who falls in love with the dashing Lord Barcondale (Valentino) while on her honeymoon. The film was directed by Sam Wood.

     The film was based on a novel by Elinor Glyn; the Edwardian novelist whose book It was turned into a star-making vehicle for Clara Bow. Glyn was in Hollywood as a counter-argument to the accusations of loose moral conduct being leveled at the film colony. She earned substantial sums for giving public lectures on things such as romantic love. She also advised on film productions of her own and other writers’ works, demanding authentic reproduction of the niceties of social etiquette. For Beyond The Rocks, Glyn reportedly taught Valentino to kiss a lady’s palm instead of the back of her hand.

     Valentino had just had his first major hit in The Sheik, which was breaking box office records. Jesse Lasey, Paramount Studios Vice-president, was anxious to capitalize on his latest rising star and offered him the film. Valentino’s fiancée, Natacha Rambova, who was known for outspoken nature concerning Valentino’s career, thought the project was trashy and would stop his career dead in its tracks. The fact that Valentino would be acting against Swanson only cooled her anger marginally. In the end, Rambova insisted on being on the set and often clashed with director Wood over how Valentino was being shoot.

     Beyond The Rocks was one of the first major films to come under the gaze of the newly formed Hays Office, which served to dampen the script’s more passionate moments. According to Gloria Swanson’s autobiography Swanson On Swanson “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.”

     The Filmmuseum is currently restoring the print in anticipation of a screening at the second edition of their Filmmeuseum Biennial film festival which will take place from April 6 to the 10, 2005 in Amsterdam.

     In her autobiography, Swanson related that later in her life, many would ask some of her early silent films that had since been lost. “The same sad questions are always asked: Does anyone know of a print anywhere of Beyond The Rocks, the film Rudy Valentino made with me in 1921? Can anyone locate a print of Madame Sans-Gene? Does anyone have a complete copy, including the last reel, of Sadie Thompson? I would love to see them again and know they’re not lost forever. That, after all, was supposed to be the great virtue of pictures- that they would last forever.”