Jules Verne: Das Licht am Ende der Welt

Pirates led by the supremely evil Yul Brynner, take over a lighthouse run by Kirk Douglas, Fernando Rey on a rocky island. They then execute a devious plan to cause ships to run aground, pillaging their wrecks. Douglas survives, and he desperately fights their plot whilst plotting and planning to avoid Brynners gang of demented bloodthirsty savages, Sammantha Eggar is the shipwrecked maiden that avoids the pirates slaughter soon complicates the situation. 'The Light At The Edge Of The World' is based on a novel by Jules Verne. It is nothing short of thrilling and for it's time shocking, It deserves a little more recognition.

3 stars for the cinematography by Henri Decaë--a beautiful, windswept, remote, rocky coastline in Spain, standing in for the story's location. This is an odd kind of adventure film, with sudden and numerous violent deaths of innocent victims. Those scenes create a downbeat, even depressing atmosphere that never leaves the mind. Acting powerhouses Kirk Douglas and Yul Brynner are not really used to advantage. They're just there to keep the plot going with a relentless, mutual antagonism. Some special effects are impressive, others not so much. An oddly romantic score by Piero Piccioni seems meant for a different movie. See it for the locations.

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.

Or maybe this film could be seen as a kind of DIE HARD ancestor, just a little bit, but with some ingredients that have nothing to do with the John McTiernan's movie. Though Yul Brynner's character, splendid mixup between cruelty and refinement, made me think of Alan Rickman's character as Hans Gruber in DIE HARD. An exquisite villian as I love in a film. Yes this movie is a very curious but terrific piece of work, awesome, gruesome on many scenes too, a feature which is very difficult to describe. A scheme that also made me think of Gordon Douglas' BARQUERO, the lead character facing a bunch of villains lead by the main character's Nemesis, here Yul Brynner instead of Warren Oates. Yul Brynner outstanding in the heavy leader. A movie that astonished me the first time I saw it, a wrecker scheme, as in Charles Brabant's LES NAUFRAGEURS. This film is adapted from a Jules Verne's book, I am so surprised. Kirk Douglas in a scene with Renato Salvatori, which is the same as Steve McQueen with Mako in the SAND PEEBLES. A shooting from a distance scene.

This is an adventure film based on a Jules Verne's novel about a pirate captain and his crew that take over a small island with a lighthouse on it; the idea is to turn out the light at night when ships are at sight so that they crash against the rocks and the pirates can easily steal everything from the passengers and the wrecked vessel. The point is that one of the lighthouse servers -the only survivor- manages to escape into the island and will try to ruin the pirates sinister plans.

Though not a great film at all and a bit slow, "The Light at the End of the World" doesn't lack some sort of charm and interest perhaps because of the lone man's fight against the whole bunch of criminals all by himself and perhaps also because of the hostile and lonely atmosphere in which the action takes place.

Kirk Douglas is the lonely fighter and Yul Brynner plays the flamboyant and deadly captain Kongre, leader of the pirates. The feminine touch is brought by Samantha Eggar as a survivor of a ship wreck that is captured by Kongre's men.

Not a great adventure film, but sort of original and worth a look in my opinion for fans of the genre.

The film was shot in the coast of Spain, but Verne's novel settles the action in the "Isla de los Estados", a small Argentine island a few miles east of its most southern province called "Tierra del Fuego" (Land of Fire) where you can still visit the lighthouse that inspired Verne.