The Edge of the World The Edge of the World Milestone / Image 1937 / B&W / 1:37 flat full frame / 74 62 min. / Street Date December 9, 2003 / 29.99 Starring John Laurie, Belle Chrystall, Eric Berry, Kitty Kirwan, Finlay Currie, Niall MacGinnis Cinematography Monty Berman, Skeets Kelly, Ernest Palmer Film Editor Derek N. Twist, Robert Walters Original Music Cyril Ray Produced by Joe Rock Written and Directed by Michael Powell
	Reviewed by Glenn Erickson Michael Powell's initial personal production is a great movie that combines documentary techniques with a simple but compelling story. The first decades of the 20th century saw the abandonment of many outer isles in Great Britain, the kind shown in Man of Aran. With breathtaking location photography and a small cadre of hardy actors, Powell had his first big success with this film, before he teamed up with partner Emeric Pressburger. Synopsis: A tiny island is dying because the attraction of cities along with agricultural failures and the advent of mechanized fishing have reduced the number of young who elect to stay. Ruth Manson (Belle Chrystall) is caught between the issue of staying or leaving. Her brother Robbie (Eric Berry) wants to emigrate, and her beau Andrew Gray (Niall MacGinnis) wants to keep trying to live independently on the island. With the menfolk split on the issue, the two young men elect to race-climb to the top of a steep cliff to decide. The Edge of the World is a more honest film than Flaherty's Man of Aran; it makes no pretense of absolute authenticity. Aran fudged many details, but Powell's film gets to the bottom of the issues involved through a simple melodrama. Powell also knows how to make a point and move on. His picture has a lot of footage devoted to craggy cliffs and treacherous-looking waves, but the island people aren't entirely dominated by the harsh landscape. The island here looks hospitable when compared to Aran's primitive rock. Powell uses the framing device of a rich yachtsman visiting the island with his girlfriend (Powell and his then-girlfriend Frankie Reidy) to introduce a dead land of stone houses abandoned and untouched for years. Sailor Niall MacGinnis sees the houses and cliffs he once knew, and remembers the tale of how the emigration started. The central plot is sparse but well-handled, with a feel for ethnographic detail. Andrew Gray's dad Finlay Currie is a hardy man who cannot turn the opinion of top-billed John Laurie, a stubborn farmer dead-set against Andrew marrying his daugher Ruth. We see a dance, several male-only political gatherings, and a church meeting. In a nice detail, a frail grandma is parked in a chair in the sun outside her hut so she can hear the singing coming from the direction of the church. Powell knows he has a story about a depressing economic situation - young men like Robbie Manson are taking jobs on mainland fishing trawlers, efficiently scooping up the fish the islanders need to survive. Powell's not above going for the obvious thrills of the rock-climbing race and an urgent medical emergency in a storm. The treacherous cliff scene is a big success. At a later junction in the story, a baby (whose we won't say, for anti-spoiler purposes) has to be gotten to a mainland doctor quickly, and the banished Andrew shows up to help in the rescue. It's pure 30s melodrama, yet distinguished from Hollywood Selznick-type hokum by the simplicity of the telling and the avoidance of heart-tugging effects. Evidence of Powell the Artist abounds. The coverage of the water and landscape is consistently imaginative, with cameras placed in unusual but appropriate positions. On a clifftop, for instance, we look down from a platform to see the heroes lying on the grass only a few inches from a precipice, while waves crash almost a thousand feet below. One visual stands out, a superimposition of white waves and dark water over Belle Chrystall's face. It expresses her confusion and unhappiness perfectly, while transforming her into a piece of modern art. The waves appear to warp her sad features. It's worth a page of expository dialogue. The Edge of the World was a tough shoot reportedly enjoyed by Powell's London based actors, all of whom bring in restrained and nuanced performances. John Laurie and Finlay Currie became Powell regulars; Currie was later a ubiquitous presence in Hollywood biblical & costume dramas produced in England. Trim and muscular Niall MacGuinness will shock genre fans, who know him as the portly menace in Night of the Demon and as Zeus in Jason and the Argonauts. Milestone's DVD of The Edge of the World is the result of a restoration begun by the National Film and Television Archive in 1990. At that time a reel of footage was reinserted, undoing the damage done by a later reissue. Just this year, the BFI digitally restored the picture and sound. I only saw the film once in college in a truly unimpressive mess of a print; this version, presented by Martin Scorsese, is almost pristine. The BFI restoration is what might have held up the DVD, which was first announced for much earlier in the year. Major studios could also do us a service by holding off on some of their discs until good film restorations can be completed. I hope that's the case with the delays on Laura and The Grapes of Wrath over at Fox. Milestone has packed this disc with extras: the Return to the Edge of the World is a short subject I've seen before, but it's very good; the patriotic Powell short An Airman�s Letter to His Mother is harder to see and in excellent condition. The commentary with Thelma Schoonmaker and Ian Christie covers most Edge details, and there are some audio excerpts of Daniel Day-Lewis reading from Powell's book about the experience of filming in the Shetland Islands. On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, The Edge of the World rates: Movie: Excellent Video: Very Good Sound: Very Good Supplements: Daniel Day-Lewis reads from 200,000 Feet on Foula, (Michael Powell's book of their adventures on the island), Commentary with Thelma Schoonmaker and Ian Christie; Return to the Edge of the World 1978 docu; An Airman�s Letter to His Mother 1941 short Powell film; Stills gallery Packaging: Keep case Reviewed: November 25, 2003 [Savant Main Page] [Savant Links] [Article Index] [Review Index] [Savant 5 Year Report] DVD Savant Text © Copyright 2007 Glenn Erickson Advertise With Us Review Staff | About DVD Talk | Newsletter Subscribe | Join DVD Talk Forum Copyright © DVDTalk.com All rights reserved | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use