A Film Canon

Beyond The Rocks is a young woman's romantic fantasy, with all the contradictions that that entails. On the one hand, Lord Hector Bracondale's (Rudolph Valentino) appeal stems from his physical bravura, as he forges his romance with Theodora Fitzgerald (Gloria Swanson) by rescuing her from a series of increasingly extreme situations - a capsized rowboat, a mountaineering fall, an entire Saharan tribe. On the other, these acts are ultimately subsumed back into an aesthetician's taste for etiquette and detail - epitomised by Hector's acute sensitivity to Theodora's perfume - that sits uncomfortably with them - a contradiction that Valentino's performance, one of the most nuanced of his career, nicely captures; the man with enough machismo to force himself upon a woman - but only up to a certain point. In the same way, despite the plea that romance supervene class distinctions (Theodora is the daughter of a guardsman), Hector's aristocratic bearing is precisely what renders him attractive (in stark contrast to his rival suitor, dismissed as having come from a long line of grocers), such that the ultimate desire is for a smorgasboard of attractive, young aristocrats that can be consumed by women of any social standing. Finally, the implication that romance should seek to approximate the wholesome rapport between father and daughter is offset by the disgust Theodora feels in the aged grocer's presence - a contradiction that is so palpable as to make it - and all the others - seem deliberate; that is, to suggest that the film is not so much torn between antiquated and modern notions as deliberately fetishing the former, explaining the occasional incursions of historical romance.