Music Box Theatre to Present Lost Valentino/Gloria Swanson Film BEYOND THE ROCKS, 6/8
Music Box Theatre presents a long lost film from the Hollywood Golden Age when its monthly Silent Cinema Series revives the 1922 Gloria Swanson/Rudolph Valentino treasure Beyond the Rocks. Chicagoans will have the rare opportunity to see this silent romance on the big screen with live musical accompaniment when Beyond the Rocks screens Saturday, June 8, noon, at Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport Avenue.
Beyond the Rocks, starring young film icons Gloria Swanson and Rudolph Valentino, was long considered one of the great "lost" films from the Hollywood Golden Age; only a one-minute fragment was known to exist. It was puzzle-pieced together by film cataloguers at the Nederlands Filmmuseum after finding the first two nitrate reels in a film collection of nitrate prints. Filmmuseum staff searched for months until they located and identified all the lost reels of the film. The restoration premiered in 2005 at the Cannes Film Festival (with a recorded score). The Chicago screening is presented with live organ accompaniment by "master of magic notes" Dennis Scott.
Beyond the Rocks anticipates a heartrending series of coincidences as a poor aristocrat (Swanson) marries a multimillionaire in order to restore her family's fortune, then falls for a handsome playboy (Valentino). Directed by Sam Wood and based on the romance novel by Elinor Glyn, Beyond the Rocks exhibits an effortless chemistry between young lovers.
Named by Chicago magazine as the Best New Film Series of 2011 and recently hailed by the Chicago Reader's J.R. Jones as one of the best movie matinee series in the city, the Music Box Silent Cinema Series is presented on the second Saturday of each month atnoon. All films are shown "authentically" in 35mm at proper silent film speed and aspect ratio with live accompaniment by Dennis Scott at the Music Box Theatre organ.
Music Box Theatre's Second Saturday Silent Cinema Series continues July 13 with Tod Browning's silent film melodrama, The Unholy Three, starring Lon Chaney as one of three slideshow performers who leave the circus and start a crime spree.
Dennis Scott, Music Box Theatre's house organist, is an internationally known silent film organist dubbed the "Master of Magic Notes" by Suzanne Lloyd, granddaughter of the comic genius Harold Lloyd. Scott began accompanying silent films in the 1970s, when he started playing theater pipe organs installed in pizza parlors in the Midwest and the West Coast. He is a co-founder of the Silent Film Society of Chicago. Ongoing at the Music Box, he plays weekend intermissions, the annual Sing-A-Long Sound of Music, Sing-A-Long Grease,Valentine's Day Sing-Along and the acclaimed Music Box Christmas Sing-Along, a Chicago holiday tradition for nearly 30 years. For Music Box's Second Saturday Silent Cinema Series, Scott accompanies a classic silent film, live, at noon on the second Saturday of each month on the Music Box Theatre organ. The series was named the "Best New Film Series of 2011" by Chicago magazine and "Best Matinee Film Series of 2012" by the Chicago Reader.
About the Music Box Theatre: For nearly 30 years the Music Box Theatre has been the premier venue in Chicago for independent and foreign films, festivals and some of the greatest cinematic events in Chicago. It currently has the largest cinema space operated full time in the city. The Music Box Theatre is independently owned and operated by the Southport Music Box Corporation. SMBC, through its Music Box Films division, also distributes foreign and independent films in the theatrical, DVD and television markets throughout the United States. For additional information please visit www.musicboxtheatre.com
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