HAVING been presumed lost for decades, "Beyond the Rocks" (1922), which stars Gloria Swanson and Rudolph Valentino in their sole teaming, was rediscovered by the Nederlands Filmmuseum in 2003 in a vast collection of unmarked film cans it inherited from a collector in 2000.
This major rediscovery and restoration will be screened by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in its Lost and Found series at its Samuel Goldwyn Theater on Tuesday, with live musical accompaniment by Michael Mortilla.
Although not unique, it was rare in that era that two stars of their magnitude would be paired in the same film. Swanson was the most glamorous star of the '20s and Valentino the most celebrated Latin lover of them all. Their chemistry is all that one could hope for in this elegant melodrama adapted from a 1906 Elinor Glyn novel and directed with sensitivity and sophistication by Sam Wood. Glyn, best remembered for dubbing Clara Bow the It Girl, wrote romances that were steamy for their time, and though they wouldn't work as talkies, they were perfect fodder for silents.
Swanson's well-born but impoverished Theodora is rescued from drowning by Valentino's dashing Lord Bracondale. "Wonderful, but not the marrying kind," declares one of Theodora's two middle-aged spinster sisters, who successfully press her to marry a stout, elderly tycoon (Robert Bolder) to ensure the financial security of themselves and their father (Alec B. Francis).
Theodora and Bracondale cross paths again under dramatic circumstances only to realize their profound mutual attraction. Theodora, however, is not about to betray her husband. As the anguish builds between the thwarted lovers, Glyn comes up with a plot development that pays off handsomely, thanks to the beautifully shaded portrayals Wood elicited from not only his stars but also Bolder and others, including Gertrude Astor as Bracondale's jealous would-be fiancee. "Beyond the Rocks" is indeed a special event for film buffs.
French fixation
Louis Malle's "Au Revoir les Enfants" (1987) has the subtlety and devastating effect of Renoir's prophetic classic "Rules of the Game," and it is suffused with the calm, detached tragic irony and inevitability of the ancient Greek plays.
