The Light at the Edge of the World (1971)

Sadly Over-hyped

Admirable film.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

A lighthouse circa Cape Horn is cared by a keepers(Fernando Rey , Massimo Ranieri, Kirk Douglas). A gang of pirates attacks the lighthouse .The pirates(Aldo Sambrell,Jean Claude Drout, Tito Garcia, among others) are fiercely commanded by Kongre(Yul Brynner). Handsome hero named Will Denton(Kirk Douglas) with only company a little monkey ,suffering misfortunes for the conditions in which unlucky is forced to exist. Denton soon realizes that the island in the base of pirates who lure ships to their doom on the rocky coast and arrange shipwrecks(appear castaways as Samantha Eggar and Renato Salvatori) for profit . Denton discovers the truth and confronts Kongre in a fight to death.This is an enjoyable adventures tale with tension, suspense, thrills and good action scenes. Some fierce hand-to hand combats and pursuits scenes will have you on the edge of your armchair. However the ending is some ridiculous, unconvincing and overblown. Spectacular landscapes shot in Spain : Cadaques and Manga Mar Menor, great location-footage of both locations, the Spaniard coast is the best thing about movie. Duo starring is frankly extraordinary. Kirk Douglas gives vigorous physical performance, he's magnificent as individualist, stubborn hero, such as ¨Spartacus, Vikings,Ulysses and 20000 leagues under the sea(also by Jules Verne)¨. Impressive Yul Brynner, as usual, playing exotic roles, such as ¨Taras Bulba, Salomon, The buccaneer and King and I ¨. The film displays a colorful cinematography by Henri Decae and Cecilio Paniagua , furthermore evocative musical score by Piero Piccioni. The picture is regularly directed by Kevin Billington. This is a highly agreeable movie and suits marvelously . I can recommend this work to everybody who enjoy good adventures and spectacular maritime outdoors, however no for small kids by violent and realistic scenes.

Surprising that Jules Verne would write such a story. Even more surprising that Hollywood would produce it. Yul Brynner is unbelievably good as a man freed of all bounds of convention, free to indulge his taste for cruelty and domination. Douglass is an excellent counterpoint, a courageous individual who's chosen simple solitude as a way to deal with the complications and turmoil society had imposed on him. And Samantha Egger's character is the capper, a woman willing to sacrifice far too much for comfort and safety. Inotherwords, everyman. The movie does show its age and is limited by the conventions of time and place and technology of the time. If you're looking for special effects and action as substitutes for thought, look elsewhere.

Uneven and uneventful adventure in which a group of cruel pirates, led by Brynner, takes a far island and start a game of cat/and/mouse with the lighthouse keeper (Douglas). Interesting premise receives a juvenile treatment that spoiled all the real suspense. Brynner is good and malevolous. I give this a 5 (five).

I read the book first, a fairly good novel by the prolific Jules Verne entitled The Lighthouse at the End of the World. I enjoyed the book sufficiently to look forward with a degree of eagerness to the film, but my anticipation was shattered once I saw the actual movie.It's a terribly dreary affair, about lighthouse keepers near to Cape Horn who are attacked by a band of pirates. The pirates seize control of their island, and more importantly their lighthouse, and use it to steer unsuspecting vessels onto the nearby rocks.Kirk Douglas plays the surviving lighthouse keeper, and Yul Brynner plays the main pirate. Both roles are under written and both stars seem ill at ease with the material they've been signed up to work with. The action is littered with distracting embarrassments, such as the scene where Kirk leaps from a cliff into the sea, but it is so obviously a dummy making the fall that it evokes laughter more than excitement.This might have been an enjoyable kids movie if treated better, but every now and then it lapses into brutality which makes it unsuitable even for the juvenile crowd. In particular, there's a savage scene in which a hostage is skinned alive by the pirates, and we see peels of skin being torn off with a hooked pike to reveal blood and raw flesh beneath. This is not the stuff of a childrens' flick. Furthermore, the film frequently turnd up in an incoherent, chopped up 95 minute edition, which has been cut down from the two hour original so badly that it barely makes sense at all. An interesting dilemma for the audience is whether to watch the short, illogical version, or the long, dreary one. Suffice to say, both are awful!