Beyond the Rainbow

• 1922

• Watchlist

If her scenes had not ended up on the cutting-room floor, this uneven drama would have been the film debut of Clara Bow (later on, when she was a star, the scenes would be put back in and the picture re-released). How Bow was cut out in the first place is a mystery, since her role was pivotal to the action -- as Virginia Gardner, a little flapper girl, she is left out of a fashionable party thrown by her mother (Helen Ware). To exact revenge, she plays a joke by passing out notes amongst several of the guests reading, "Consult your conscience. Your secret is common gossip." This message sends a number of people into a panic and during the evening, and a shot rings out, wounding one of the men. By the time the mystery is cleared up, Marion Taylor (Billie Dove) and Edward Mallory (Harry Morey) have fallen in love. Ironically, when Dove was interviewed for William M. Drew's book, In the Center of the Frame, she remembered Bow as a happy girl. The reality was exactly the opposite -- right after filming, Bow's mother, in a fit of insanity, tried to kill her.