L'età di amare

I had a full range of impressions and emotions while watching this recently rediscovered silent film. I saw it on a big screen in Orlando (before DVD release) and my husband and I sat in the very front row so we would be right on top of it and wouldn't miss a thing.

Story aspects: Beyond the Rocks is a romantic melodrama, based on a story by Elinor Glyn. It had some typical silent film clichés and overacting, but to a veteran silent film fan this will not be distracting. Gloria Swanson plays Theodora, who loves her father and family enough to sacrifice for them by marrying an older man she does not love just because he is rich. Afterward she falls in love with Hector (Rudolph Valentino), a rich romantic young gentleman who rescues her from the clutches of death not just once, but twice. A series of circumstances leads the husband to understand his wife is in love with another man, and he goes off on a dangerous exhibition to Algeria with the aim of sacrificing himself so that the young couple can be together.

Swanson and Valentino obviously enjoyed working together, they had a nice chemistry together on screen, though it didn't strike me as a terribly passionate one. In fact there was not one single kiss scene in the entire film, a major disappointment to me (unless there was one in missing footage). The closest they come to it is one scene where she rubs her cheek against his head. There was instead much talk of duty and doing the right thing by staying away from each other as much as possible, so that the husband would not be hurt.

Style aspects: Gloria's clothes in the film were gorgeous. Valentino on the other hand looked like he was shortchanged in the wardrobe department in several scenes, where he wears a tweed suit that ill becomes him. It looks too tight and only one top button is buttoned on his suit coat, which looked odd to me. For one brief scene he looks incredibly dashing all dressed in white. This was also the first time I noticed that Valentino had a rather large horizontal scar on his right cheek! You can see details like this much better on a big screen. I have never noticed it in any Valentino film I've seen on DVD. In the beginning scenes Valentino looks so young he looks like a teenager. Delectable. Gloria on the other hand had so much makeup on that she looked much older than her years, older even than she looked in Queen Kelly! That kept putting me off. It got a little better when she started wearing sophisticated, glamorous clothes, when she did age as part of the plot.

The art direction was pretty good for a 1922 movie. The scenes on the water and in the desert were quite realistic. The interior of homes looked authentic to the time period. Obviously a great deal of thought was dedicated to the overall look of the film, to make it artistic as much as possible.

Technical aspects: The film started at 7 pm and ended at 8:15 pm, so it was roughly one hour and 10 minutes long (with a 5 minute intro). My first impression of the film was that I was disappointed the beginning titles and credits were obviously lost. The font they used for the title and star credits was a modern, simple one and not impressive. If I were restoring it I would have designed opening credits with a strong vintage look to them, perhaps using a decorative flower design border. They could have gotten ideas from similar 1922 films. To just announce their magical names, Gloria Swanson and Rudolph Valentino, with a boring, ugly modern font was not appropriate and didn't do justice to the importance of this film find.

Most scenes had artifacts galore and missing frames. A pageant sequence was partly missing, leaving the audience with unanswered questions as to what went on during those important scenes. There were some deteriorated scenes and decomposition but most of the film was in watchable condition, and we should be thankful we have it at all.

Musical aspects: The score was a strange mixed bag of new age music with some jazzy refrains thrown in at inappropriate times. One flashback scene received some vintage sounding music but it wasn't impressively authentic. There was one nice bit of music in a hotel scene where a musician was playing some kind of elaborate string instrument and people were dancing. That was my favorite part of the score, but alas, all too brief. Overall I feel the composer was trying to sound like James Horner's music, the fellow who did James Cameron's Titanic soundtrack, but this new age, Celtic sound is just not what I prefer when I watch my silent films. Enough with the pan flutes already! I prefer period music for silents.

The absolute worst thing about this score was the constant sound effects. It was ridiculous. No audience would have heard that many sound effects when going to watch a silent film in 1922. They wouldn't have heard that many sound effects if they had seen a silent-part sound film in 1929!

My rating: I'd give this film a 7 out of 10 for the storyline itself, a typical melodrama that wasn't original, an 8 out of 10 for set design and locations, a 4 out of 10 for the "restoration" work done, a 6 out of 10 for the music score (I might have raised that to a 7 without all the sound effects!), and an 8 out of 10 for the acting.

Addendum: I have since read the 1906 novel by Elinor Glyn, it's much better than the film. I would strongly suggest people interested in this film seek out the novel.

This film has long been much sought after because it is the only film in which Valentino and Swanson star together. Now that this film has been newly discovered perhaps it will receive some actual reviews on here in another year or so. Once restoration work is completed along with a newly composed score it will be shown at a film festival in Amsterdam next year. The good news is that the film is in good condition except for about 2 minutes which were damaged and will need work. This film was discovered among 2000 canisters that were given to the Filmmuseum from a collector who passed away. It took several years to realize that a complete copy of the film was in the collection.

I have to start by saying that I am probably the worst possible person to write a comment on "Beyond the Rocks", as it is the only silent movie I've seen to date. However, since not many people have yet had a chance to see this movie, I thought it my duty as a movie enthusiast to review.

In "Beyond the Rocks" a poor young woman, Theodora Fitzgerald (Gloria Swanson), briefly meets the handsome Lord Hector Bracondale (Rudolph Valentino). They like each other, but soon part ways. Some time later Theodora marries a rich man, even though she has no feelings for him whatsoever, in order to make her father and sisters happy. On her honeymoon she runs into Hector again, and they continue to meet each other socially. Soon they realise that they love each other, but Theodora is now married, which makes it impossible for them to be together.

I found the beginning of "Beyond the Rocks" a bit slow and uneventful. Things do happen, but somehow I couldn't really get 'into' the story. The reason for this is, most likely, that the love between the two main characters at that point hasn't fully developed yet, nor have their problems, and there is little to get emotionally involved with the characters about. But this 'slow' part doesn't last long, and the rest of the movie is as interesting as such a love story can possibly be.

"Beyond the Rocks" is famous for co-starring two silent movie greats, Gloria Swanson and Rudolph Valentino. I was a bit disappointed with Valentino at first. During much of the first half of the movie, he has little to do but smile and look good, neither of which requires much acting talent. Fortunately he has more emotions to convey later, and then finally gets the chance to show what he's capable of. But Swanson remains the star of this movie. Whenever she is on the screen, whatever she is doing, she's the one you're looking at. Even when Valentino acts at his best, he is very much in his own world inside the movie, while Swanson transcends the bounds, radiating off the screen and drawing you into the story.

Not long ago, only one minute of this movie was known to have survived. Then, a few years ago, a copy of the whole film was found in The Netherlands, where it was restored by the Nederlands Filmmuseum. The quality is, as far as I can judge, usually very good. There are only two moments in the film where there is a lot of damage, and it briefly becomes extremely difficult to see what's happening on the screen. The first of these moments is very short, and the shot rather uninteresting, so that it is no great loss to not be able to see it. The other is longer and happens in the middle of a considerably more important and interesting scene. It is a shame that this part of the movie didn't survive in a better condition, but one can't expect miracles, and an advancement from one minute of film to all 80 minutes whereof perhaps one minute damaged is doubtless a great one.

Dutch movie composer Henny Vrienten has made a soundtrack for "Beyond the Rocks". Unique of this soundtrack is that it not only contains music, but also sounds from the surroundings of the characters: cars driving up, footsteps on the stairs, knocks on the door, etc. The general opinion on this seems to be that it makes it easier for people to follow what's happening. I personally can see the other view - that silent movies weren't meant to have sound effects - as well, but the sound as it is didn't bother me. There is one thing, however, that I think should have been left out, and that is the sound of people talking in the background, which is sometimes used. If the actors don't talk audibly, I really don't think it's appropriate to have talking (and sometimes laughing) heard in the background, even if it only occurs in 'party' scenes, where it would be a normal sound to expect. The music is often good and fitting enough (though sometimes rather early-21st-century), except in one scene where the music played in a fancy hotel/restaurant is of the kind you would expect to hear in a saloon in a bad western. This soundtrack is not my favorite part of the film as I saw it, but it certainly isn't so bad that it ruins one's viewing experience, and naturally the movie can't be blamed for it.

All in all, this is a great movie. I hope that it will soon get distributed around the world to give everyone the opportunity to see it.

The silent era continues to have surprises for us, such as this one, "Beyond the Rocks," a film starring Gloria Swanson and Rudolph Valentino once thought lost but since rediscovered and restored.

Based on a novel by Elinor Glyn, it's a potboiler that doesn't hold up well today, but so little does at age 84. It's the story of a young woman, Theodora, the hope of her family (i.e., the one with the youth and looks to nab a rich husband) who meets a British nobleman (Valentino) when he saves her from drowning.

Then she meets her betrothed, a short, old thing. She's disappointed, but for the sake of her father, marries him. She runs into Valentino on her honeymoon and this time, he saves her from falling off a mountain during a climbing expedition. They seem Meant to Be. But both are determined to honor her marriage vows.

Valentino and Swanson are heavily made up, and both actually looked much better with a more natural appearance. In the beginning, with her hair down and less Max Factor, Swanson is lovely - petite, with amazing eyes and beautiful skin. Later on, however, she looks older than she is due to the make-up and hair-do. Her character has a great wardrobe, and Swanson wears it well.

Both actors give good performances. Valentino had a tendency to be obvious in some of his emotions - it was more the style then - but he gives a more relaxed performance in "Beyond the Rocks." Most of the movie looks beautiful with its sepia tones though there are some damaged sections. It's quite a find and a chance to see two big stars of the silent era together.

Swanson wrote of parts of the film that don't seem to exist any longer - but as one of the comments here suggests, she perhaps was mixing this up with another film. Given the plot, it would be easy to do so.

It's great to have this film back after 84 years! It's only a pity it couldn't have been rediscovered while Gloria Swanson was still alive (in her autobiography she named it as one of the three films of hers the "loss" of which she regretted most, along with "Madame Sans-Gêne" and the last reel of "Sadie Thompson"). Elinor Glyn's story is horribly contrived — I can't think of another movie until the Beatles' "Help!" that moved its characters so extensively around the world to so little effect — and the love scenes are a bit disappointing (Swanson recalled that the Fatty Arbuckle and William Desmond Taylor scandals both broke just before this film started shooting, with the result that the script was given a last-minute rewrite to tone down the adulterous passions of her and Valentino's characters) — but what makes this movie truly great is the marvelously understated acting. This is the film to show someone who thinks all silent-film actors swooned, waved their arms like windmills and reacted to traumas like the Statue of Liberty collapsing in an earthquake: the people in "Beyond the Rocks" use simple, economical gestures and facial expressions to get their emotions across. I credit director Sam Wood — who made the transition to sound quite successfully and had a long career in the talkies — with getting these marvelously realistic performances from his cast. Henny Vrienten's musical score for the restored print is somber and effective, though I could have done without the sound effects and crowd noises and it seems odd to watch a silent film with music whose primary instruments are a flute and a Miles Davis-style trumpet.