Beyond The Rocks (DVD)

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The modern Hollywood economic model depends so heavily on revenue from ancillary markets that we can be certain every film made today will be preserved, from Oscar winners all the way down to the very last frame of a Rob Schneider film. In the silent film era, however, distributors viewed films as products with a short shelf-life, meant to be screened in brief theatrical runs, then most likely never seen again. Silent films were shot on nitrate stock, which was expensive to store properly. With no economic incentive to do otherwise, many distributors simply discarded the films; some studios actually burned the nitrate prints and negatives in order to recover the silver in them. As a result, film scholars estimate that as many as eighty to ninety percent of the films of the silent era no longer exist.

Many of the early films that did survive were salvaged by the work of early preservationists like New York´s Museum of Modern Art and the late, great Henri Langlois in France. Others were squirreled away by private collectors over the years, and these "lost" films only resurface when these collections come to light. Such was the case in 2000 when Dutch collector Joop van Liempd gave part of his enormous and eclectic film collection to the Nederlands Filmmuseum. The collection contained many wonderful old films, but museum workers were both delighted and shocked to find a reel of film featuring silent film actors Gloria Swanson and Rudolph Valentino. This could only be "Beyond the Rocks" (1922), the sole movie to star both screen legends, and a film previously believed to be long-lost. After four years of prospecting through van Liempd´s sprawling (and often poorly labeled) collection, Filmmuseum workers unearthed the entire film. Amazingly, the fragile nitrate print survived mostly intact (alas, a fabled tango scene with Swanson and Valentino was never found), though the footage still required substantial restoration.

The discovery is an exciting one for any film historian even though "Beyond the Rocks" is a fairly mundane film. "Beyond the Rocks" is a classic tale of star-crossed lovers. Theodora Fitzgerald (Swanson) first meets the dashing Lord Hector Bracondale (Valentino) when he rescues her from a boating accident. Their passion is ignited instantly, but they are soon parted. Theodora marries a much older man for his money, but her Swiss Alps honeymoon leads to complications when she is once again rescued by Hector (who just happens to be in the area), this time from a nearly fatal plunge off a mountain. Poor Theodora is definitely not the outdoors type. These early rescues get the pulse racing a bit, but the film soon settles into an uninspired and rather maudlin routine: Theodora and Hector must deny their love for each other, but alas they cannot bear to be apart, and so on. The love triangle gets particularly complex when the husband discovers his wife´s illicit affair, and quite naturally decides… to go on an African safari where he is attacked by rebels. Hey, it´s a melodrama, these kinds of things happen.

The film gets some mileage out of its exotic settings (Paris, the Alps, the Sahara), but director Sam Wood´s leaden photography is a real drag (much like it is in the Marx Bros. film "A Night at the Opera"). Wood never met a static tableau he didn´t love, and virtually every scene (whether in a ski resort, or in the middle of the Sahara) looks exactly the same, with the characters shot at medium-length and held in the dead-center of the frame. The story is riddled with clichés and offers few surprises, though the ending is worth discussing. Theodora´s dying husband not only forgives his wife, but actually gives his blessing to Hector and her. If "Beyond the Rocks" had been made just fifteen years later, in Hays´ Code Hollywood, the would-be adulterous wife would have been required to be punished severely for her unchaste thoughts. Swanson and Valentino are natural stars, of course, but both have delivered far more compelling performances. Still, this was their only screen pairing, and fans will cherish the film if only for that. A new score composed by Henny Vrienten for this release is perhaps the most enjoyable aspect of the film; classical and jazzy, playful and somber, this eclectic score is a real treat.

The DVD includes a second film as an extra, but it merits treatment here. "The Delicious Little Devil" (1919) is a 54 min. feature that is listed as starring Valentino and Mae Murray, but old Rudy is an afterthought here compared to magnificent Mae. Louise Brooks it the unchallenged queen of the silent era (and any other) as far as I´m concerned, but Mae Murray was something special too. Mae Murray was known as "The Girl with the Bee-Stung Lips." I have no idea what "Bee-Stung Lips" are, but I know I like them. Murray was a hoofer (a Zeigfeld girl, in fact) who made it big on the silver screen. She was a perfect silent film star, not only beautiful, but a gifted physical performer (as you would expect a dancer to be) who made every movement and gesture count. Apparently, her voice didn´t pass muster, however, and her career ended with the advent of the sound era.