“Beyond the Rocks” tells the story of star-crossed lovers featuring two of silent film’s most popular stars: Rudolph Valentino and Gloria Swanson. Director Sam Wood, who would continue working into the era of talkies, turning out classics like “Goodbye, Mr. Chips” (1939), did an outstanding job here of managing big stars and instilling good production values into the movie. The 80 minutes, long for a silent picture, moves rapidly, is a good view even today. As anyone who has seen silent films can attest to, watching them takes a different discipline than sound movie viewing. It was helped with a good screenplay by Jack Cunningham and outstanding cinematography by Alfred Gilks.
Gloria Swanson hoped to have a screening for the general public in her later years, but discovered that all copies of the film had been lost during the entire twentieth century. She passed away in 1983 (Rudolph Valentino in 1926) never viewing the film again. A copy miraculously turned up in a private collection of movie cannisters in the Netherlands in 2003, and released on DVD in 2006.
“Beyond the Rocks” was successful at the box office in 1922 for producer Jesse L. Lasky and Paramount Pictures.
Beyond the Rocks (1922)
cinema
My Review
“Beyond the Rocks” tells the story of star-crossed lovers featuring two of silent film’s most popular stars: Rudolph Valentino and Gloria Swanson. Director Sam Wood, who would continue working into the era of talkies, turning out classics like “Goodbye, Mr. Chips” (1939), did an outstanding job here of managing big stars and instilling good production values into the movie. The 80 minutes, long for a silent picture, moves rapidly, is a good view even today. As anyone who has seen silent films can attest to, watching them takes a different discipline than sound movie viewing. It was helped with a good screenplay by Jack Cunningham and outstanding cinematography by Alfred Gilks.
Gloria Swanson hoped to have a screening for the general public in her later years, but discovered that all copies of the film had been lost during the entire twentieth century. She passed away in 1983 (Rudolph Valentino in 1926) never viewing the film again. A copy miraculously turned up in a private collection of movie cannisters in the Netherlands in 2003, and released on DVD in 2006.
“Beyond the Rocks” was successful at the box office in 1922 for producer Jesse L. Lasky and Paramount Pictures.