The Edge of the World

THE EDGE OF THE WORLD             A                

Great Britain  (81 mi)  1937  d:  Michael Powell

The seabirds were its first owners, and now the seabirds have it for their own again.

―Andrew Gray (Niall MacGinnis)

Among the truly rare and exceptional film experiences that are most memorable would have to include this film, a poignant elegy to the death of a community, featuring some of the most stunning black and white photography ever seen of life on an island off the coast of Scotland, accented by dramatic cliffs and treacherous seas, with humans, like mountain goats, daring to scale these rocky vistas with ease, turning this into a beautiful mix of naturalism and documentary, with utterly surreal moments that elevate what little story there is to a landscape accentuated tone poem.  Framed nearly entirely in flashback, it depicts the last of the island survivors, having to choose between the harsh and often barren soil that can’t sustain itself and returning to an easier life on the mainland.  To that end it’s similar to the choices being made in Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust (1991), absent the historical slave connections.  Due to an often ferocious ocean, mail delivery travel between the mainland and the island is reduced to just once a year, in effect cutting them off from the rest of the world, having to go it alone, dependent upon their own hard work and self-reliance.  Inspired by the story of the evacuation of St. Kilda in 1930, the most remote island group in Britain, a place of seemingly inaccessible rocky crags rising up from the sea, but for thousands of years it was a thriving community.  Powell kept a newspaper clipping of the story in his pocket for six years, determined to turn the story into a film.  Working as a still photographer for Alfred Hitchcock in early British silent films Champagne (1928) and Blackmail (1929), Powell claims he suggested the climactic ending of the latter film, where he and Hitchcock remained lifelong friends.  Between 1931 and 1936, Powell directed 23 films, up to seven per year, basically mastering his craft, though according to the director all are forgettable, described as quota quickies, hour-long films that satisfied Britain’s legal requirement to screen a minimum quota of British films.  So this is truly his first personal project, gathering together a cast and crew, like the director at the beginning of King Kong (1933), utilizing only those willing to spend months on an expedition to one of the most remote and isolated parts of the United Kingdom, filming on the island of Foula in the Shetland Isles (the northernmost inhabited site in the British Isles, as St. Kilda was considered too dangerous, where the Gaelic language had to be abandoned), where what was most essential was capturing the raw natural beauty of the location. 

Style wise, achieving exceptionally high production values using low budget methods, the film resembles the social realism of Dovzhenko’s EARTH (1930), especially the depiction of a working class drama, accentuating the harsh and barren conditions of working the land in such a remote region, showing the tilling of the soil, the work in the fields, the herding of sheep over rocky plateaus, and the hardscrabble life on the island, showing plenty of closeups of faces, all set in a world of cold austere beauty, almost like a Dreyer film, viewed as a working collective, eternally anguished by existential questions, with the men convening from time to time in a democratic parliament to voice their views about what to do, as food was shared throughout the community, taking care of the sick and old.  On St. Kilda, fishing was considered too dangerous, as many were drowned with their boats overturning just a few hundred feet from shore, instead they captured seabirds, which the island had in abundance, with the men lowering themselves on ropes from the clifftops, or climbing up the rocks from boats.  Islanders became expert climbers, something they learned in their youth.  The wind on the island was so strong that sheep and cattle were routinely blown off the cliffs, while the sounds of the waves beating against the cliffs was so loud it left villagers deaf for a week.  Trees could not grow there, and what few crops were planted often became polluted with salt water.  In the Roman era, believing the world was flat, St. Kilda was considered the last place on earth, with sailors viewing a giant wall rising from the sea, a reminder to explorers that this was as far as they could go.  This image opens the film, with massive cliffs appearing just above the waves, as a man (Michael Powell himself) and woman (Frankie Reidy, Powell’s future wife of forty years) are on a yacht sailing to the island, intent on staying overnight, against the advice of the sea captain, Andrew Gray (Niall MacGinnis), visiting a shoreline grave marker, with the captain recounting the story of the island in flashback.  How this begins is interesting, however, as Andrew is haunted by a flood of ghosts, the former inhabitants of the island, who stream across his line of vision, adding a touch of the surreal.  Additionally, there is an extremely dramatic orchestral score that includes an all woman’s choir (The Women of the Glasgow Orpheus Choir) conducted by Hugh Robertson that is not only operatic, but often feels otherworldly, along with a dire opening intertitle sequence that precedes the opening credits:

The slow shadow of Death is falling on the outer isles of Scotland. [scrolls up] This is the story of one of them ― and all of them.  When the Roman Fleet first sailed round Britain they saw from the Orkneys a distant island, like a blue haze across a hundred miles of sea.  They called it ― “ULTIMA THULE” [main title] THE EDGE OF THE WORLD

Using three cameramen, Monty Berman (fired early on), Skeets Kelly, and Ernest Palmer, where men are seen as tiny specks climbing over the tops of cliffs, dwarfed by the immensity of their surroundings, a community setting is introduced in the tiny, claustrophobic confines of a church, with people arriving from all across the island, a scene beautifully recreated by Terence Davies in 2016 Top Ten List #7 Sunset Song, with a pastor (Grant Sutherland) speaking a common theme of brotherhood.  With only three dozen people left, surviving on sheep and fish, the story concerns two families, the Mansons and the Grays, where Peter Manson (John Laurie) is the overly stern island patriarch, with a gruff exterior to match the hardness of the island, while his daughter Ruth (Belle Chrystall) is apparently the catch of the island, devoted to her father yet sensuous, exerting a feminine allure, though she behaves more like a movie star, hair always in place, wearing plenty of makeup.  Her twin brother is Robbie (Eric Berry), whose best friend Andrew Gray is his sister’s boyfriend.  The threesome enjoys laying on the grass on the bluffs overlooking the sea, arguing the eternal question, whether to go (to the mainland) or stay.  Peter and his son Robbie are staunchly in favor of staying, while Andrew and his father, always playing second fiddle to Peter, the easier to get along with James Gray (Finlay Currie), constantly seen smoking a pipe, are more inclined to move to the mainland.  The boys get in heated battle where the only way to settle the matter is retreating to the old ways, in a run up the rocky cliffs with no ropes, and may the better man win.  Despite the danger, the fathers agree, and the entire community comes out to watch an exciting duel between two of the strongest lads on the island, set at the bottom by boat, having to claw their way up to the top.  Despite explicit instructions at the outset describing the routes they would take, Robbie makes a dangerous life-altering change, getting stuck under the thunderous streams of a waterfall, hanging on for dear life, and then falling before help can arrive. This tragedy only intensifies the island’s divisions, as Andrew has literally no chance with Ruth, as her father refuses to speak to him, where his silence literally drives Andrew off the island, returning to the mainland.  In his absence, Ruth learns she’s pregnant and delivers a newborn without Andrew’s knowledge.  Due to the scarcity of mail deliveries, she resorts to placing messages in a bottle, helped by her father, particularly when the baby contracts diphtheria and could die without a doctor’s intervention.  Unbelievably, one of the messages gets through, with Andrew sailing through an epic storm to rescue Ruth and their baby, which remains to this day one of the better ocean storm scenes ever filmed, filled with dramatic intensity, creating a life or death urgency.  Finally forced to capitulate, even Peter agrees to be moved off the island, petitioning the government for aid in a monumental Noah’s ark style transport, where everybody and everything is moved off the island, leaving it deserted and undisturbed.  Even how that is depicted is a moving finale and a fitting climax.         

The Manxman

THE MANXMAN                   B                     

Great Britain  (90 mi)  1929  d:  Alfred Hitchcock

There’s a certain physicality about this film that is reminiscent of Robert Flaherty or Michael Powell’s THE EDGE OF THE WORLD (1937), where the rugged landscape is the essential character of the film, all but dwarfing the fragility and vulnerability of the human population.  While this is an old-fashioned Adam and Eve story about original sin, one that recalls Nathaniel Hawthorne’s infamous 1850 novel The Scarlet Letter, which is updated here to the Isle of Man (residents are called Manxmen), the home of Sir Hall Caine, the writer of the 1894 novel upon which the film is based, though Hitchcock shot the film in the small fishing village of Polperro in Cornwall.  Like Rossellini’s Stromboli (1950), these remote locations on the edge of the world make it difficult to survive the natural elements, where it’s a hard life, often bare-bones and beset with poverty, with little education and a rigorous adherence to a tough, hard-nosed religion that is often strictly regimented.  Nothing comes easy in this part of the woods, as you often pay heavily for your mistakes, where you learn early on that you have to scrape for every dollar and every scrap of food you put on the table.  In this hard-scrabble life two boys become best friends, one a poor fisherman without a penny to his name, Pete Quilliam (Carl Brisson), the other an ambitious lawyer, Phil Christian (Malcolm Keen).  What they both have in common is the same girl, Kate Cregeen (Anny Ondra), who couldn’t be more rambunctious and carefree as a young girl, nearly skipping wherever she goes instead of walking, but she’s also the most beautiful woman on the island, known as the “Manx Fairy,” working as a barmaid under the stern and watchful eye of her father, Caesar Cregeen (Randle Ayrton), who has no interest in Pete getting anywhere near his daughter, as anyone penniless is without virtue in his eyes.  Nonetheless, these two keep their flirtations out of sight, where Pete promises to search the world for his fortune, returning as a rich and successful man, persuading Kate to promise she’ll wait for him.     

In Pete’s absence, Kate’s life is seen through little penciled scribbles in her tiny diary, where soon enough she meets up with Phil, quickly transferring her love interest to him, though he’s a much more pensive guy, studying to become a Deemster, which is the title of a local judge, one of the most respectful and prestigious positions on the island.  His mother warns Phil about carrying on with Kate, as it could have a disastrous effect upon his career, but he plunges ahead anyway, shown through some of the most beautifully photogenic scenic vistas found in any Hitchcock film, shot by Jack E. Cox, beautifully capturing the stunning magnificence and grandeur of the rocky coastlines overlooking the ocean.  If truth be told, however, despite her obvious sensual presence, with Kate at the center of a love triangle, stronger feelings are expressed between the two men, whose “friendship” has a homoerotic quality about it, as they’re always slapping each other around, smiling at one another, and both have a tendency to think of the other’s welfare often above their own, which is something neither one feels for Kate.  In this regard, the three-way relationship is way ahead of its time.  While the two men continually plod through their overly melodramatic performances, where Pete is much too animated and Phil is too subdued, the camera loves Anny Ondra, the real center of the story, who will go on to star in Hitchcock’s next picture, Blackmail (1929) and become the first of many notable Hitchcock blondes.  Here her mixed emotions comprise the dramatic heart of the film, as Pete and Phil’s loyal friendship is established early on and is never in question, becoming one of the fixtures of the picture.  But Kate has a fickle nature, perhaps most beautifully expressed on the night she agrees to wait for Pete, framed by a window, where the oscillating light from the nearby lighthouse continually flickers upon her, where we see her move in and out of the darkness, a reflection of her indecision, and a rather poetic visualization of her vacillating mind. 

One other aspect of the film is the slow and deliberate pace, where some may tire of the languorous nature, where it takes forever for the story to unravel, and other than the photographic elegance of the outdoor shots, there’s not much action anywhere in this picture, which is mostly an interior chamber drama reflecting the changing moods of the characters.  When they receive word that Pete has been killed, for instance, Phil and Kate grow even closer, feeling there is nothing separating them now, where they start to plan a future together, only to have Pete return with a bundle of money, where his returning ship is shown looming off in the distance as Kate is told the news, seen as an impending disaster, but even old man Caesar welcomes him with open arms and gives the lad permission to marry his daughter.  It happens with such a rush of anxiety that Kate hasn’t a chance to react, though the wedding is a picture of differing states of mind.  The groom couldn’t be more ecstatic, never even noticing the glum look on the bride, while no one is more shamefaced than the best man Phil.  Making it even more dour are the reflections of the grizzled old father, Caesar, who speaks with the severity of a fundamentalist preacher, warning them about the reverence of marriage, where if one strays from the path they’ll have to answer to God Almighty, actually turning on their grist mill for effect as he warns the entire congregation “The mills of God grind slowly,” where you can literally feel the guilty couple cringe as they continue to keep their affair a secret.  Pete has to remind people that this is a wedding and not a wake, as he remains the happiest guy in town but completely unaware of what happened in his absence, as Kate remains in love with Phil, but is continually forced to placate her new husband.  In scene after scene we see that she can’t share in his joy, even when announcing her pregnancy she withholds that she’s carrying Phil’s child.  Pete, however, couldn’t be a prouder father, where the baby’s arrival comes near the same time that Phil is about to become a Deemster.  Compounding that event, Kate can’t live with a lie any longer and finally leaves Pete, leaving him a note while she runs to Phil, who is consumed by the significance of the upcoming event, which should be the happiest day in his life.  The bleak and foreboding future, however, is expressed by having to choose between family and career, where events spiral out of control, as Kate has nowhere to turn, culminating with Phil’s ominous first day on the bench, where he’s in for a rude awakening as all the interweaving personal destinies finally coincide with an extraordinary late act confessional.  By the end, one feels this could easily have been the blueprint for David Lean’s overlong but lusciously photographed RYAN’S DAUGHTER (1970).  

Note – there is no Hitchcock cameo

History Is Made at Night

HISTORY IS MADE AT NIGHT                    B

USA  (97 mi)  1937  d:  Frank Borzage

History Is Made at Night is not only the most romantic title in the history of cinema but also a profound expression of [Frank] Borzage's commitment to love over probability. 

—Andrew Sarris, The American Cinema

Frank Borzage is notable for having won the first Best Directing Academy Award ever issued in 1929 for 7th HEAVEN (1927), the year WINGS (1927) won Best Picture and SUNRISE (1927) won an Oscar for Best Unique and Artistic Production, winning his second Best Director award three years later for BAD GIRL (1931).  Borzage, who began his career as an actor at age 13, was directing a decade later and also successful in making the transition between Silent era films and early talkies, absorbing the influence of F.W. Murnau, one of the most influential German expressionist directors in Hollywood, having emigrated from Germany in 1926, and both directors worked at Fox Studios.  Known for his lushly visual romanticism where love triumphs over all, this film is no exception, though looking back at Depression era films, it’s always curious how in so many 30’s films the social reality is non-existent, where movies are an escapist fantasy, as this is a film exclusively about millionaires, where the lead characters make several trans-Atlantic ocean voyages and are awash in wealth, sipping vintage champagne, where money is never any object.  If only we could all live like this, seems to be the prevailing thought, we should be so lucky.  This is a tabloid romance of affluent socialites gone wrong, much of which takes place in the headlines, where wealthy shipping industrialist Bruce Vail, played by Colin Clive, the mastermind doctor in FRANKENSTEIN (1931), is facing a rocky marriage with his wife Irene, Jean Arthur, as he always jealously assumes she’s conducting affairs behind his back, becoming revengeful and spiteful, where his actions are anything but gentlemanly, showing underneath he’s a bit of a cad.  So right off the bat, we realize she wants out of an over-controlling relationship and is asking for a divorce.

This small setback only seems to whet the appetite for more vitriol from Vail, who hires a slew of lawyers, detectives, and thugs to carry out his devious plots to get his wife back, no matter how underhanded and dishonorable, as all he cares about are results.  When she’s in Paris, supposedly getting away from him, blackmail is the preferred modus operandus as he uses his chauffeur (Ivan Lebedeff) to sneak into her room and abduct her, holding her in his arms as the supposed “other guy” for onrushing photographers as a way of creating scandalous tabloid headlines.  When Charles Boyer as Paul Dumond hears all the commotion, as he’s in the hotel room next door, he sweeps her off her feet in a gallant entrance through the window before making a clean getaway, all the while pretending to be a thief in front of the husband, returning all her stolen items in a cab ride afterwards.  Of course it’s love at first sight, as Paul charms her in the way only a Parisian can, wining and dining her in the best French restaurant with music and flowing bottles of champagne, where the couple dances until dawn before reality sets in.  Not to be outdone, the sinister Vail has decided the only way to get rid of the competition is to charge him with murder, actually killing his own chauffeur and blaming it all on this Frenchman who came in through the window.  By the time Irene returns to her hotel, the police are everywhere and Vail has already alerted them to the dastardly deeds of a jewel thief, though he can plainly see Irene is wearing a necklace that was supposedly stolen.  After the police are gone, he again blackmails his wife to return back to America with him to avoid charging her beloved Frenchman, an offer she apparently could not refuse. 

Paul senses Irene is in trouble and heads for America to seek her out, easier said than done, as New York City is a thriving metropolis, and despite his best efforts, she’s nowhere to be found.  So he and his partner Cesare (Leo Carillo), the greatest chef in France, set out to lure her into an infamous New York restaurant where Cesare is stirring up publicity with his authentic French fare until eventually, only in the movies, she walks in the door.  What happens afterwards is a romantic take on the Titanic disaster, reunited and alone at last where nothing can apparently separate them, where they conjure up thoughts of running away to Tahiti and living a true fantasy life (Well, Marlon Brando did it), but instead return to Paris to clear Paul’s name after Vail pushes for his conviction.  Yet there’s a strange and mysterious mood on the ocean voyage where they are engulfed under a fogbank and subject to the ominous sounds of the ship’s foghorns blasting continuously, complete with all the hysteria and mayhem after hitting an iceberg, where the special effects are pretty cheesy, but the panic-stricken mood is well captured, especially the montage of facial close ups.  Love is never greater than when impending doom is near, and if there were ever any doubts in their lives, they have been swept away, as only their all-abiding love concerns them now.  It’s all a bit convoluted, where the magic of their romance requires key plot resolutions, where the hand of God literally touches them, removing all obstacles, clearing the deck, so to speak, and allowing their love to prevail.  It has a touch of Pressburger and Powell’s intoxicating romantic allure from A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH (1946), one of the greatest love stories ever made, but the narrative here is much more conventionally mainstream and lacks the unsurpassed originality of the British duo.  Nonetheless, this would make an excellent New Year’s Eve movie, as it’s dripping with champagne, delectable gourmet food scenes, and the wondrous, delirious throes of love.   

Foreign Correspondent

FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT        B+                  

USA  (120 mi)  1940  d:  Alfred Hitchcock

I fought for my country in my heart in a very difficult way, because sometimes it’s harder to fight dishonorably than nobly in the open. 

—Stephen Fisher (Herbert Marshall)

An often neglected but gripping spy thriller story about sending a new fresh American reporter to London to cover a European war that hadn’t truly gotten started yet sounds like the ideal perspective for Alfred Hitchcock, a British citizen newly arrived in America, with this only his second Hollywood film following REBECCA (1940), which won the Academy Award as Best Picture, both released in the same year.  It’s something of a rousing patriotic effort supporting the British war effort, a daring gesture considering America’s official position at the time remained neutral, but many British nationals felt uneasy about living and working in Hollywood while their country was on the brink of war.  By the time the film finished shooting, the war still hadn’t begun, but when it did shortly afterwards, Hitchcock added the final scene written by Ben Hecht.  While this is a complicated and convoluted story, written by a committee of writers, it’s basically a harrowing, behind-the-scenes thriller of political intrigue and espionage that involves kidnapping and murder in an attempt to obtain government secrets.  In many ways it foreshadows the exposed traitorous activities of NOTORIOUS (1946), but also the way ordinary men can become drawn into matters of international concern, like The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) and NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959), where in each there’s an accompanying romantic angle.  Initially seeking Gary Cooper, he turned down his chance to work with Hitchcock, claiming it was just “a thriller,” a narrative genre not yet in favor with the public, but one whose reputation was enhanced considerably by this director.  What’s perhaps most notable about this film is there are no proven stars, no one to carry the picture, so the often confusing, labrynthian puzzle aspects of the story carry the suspense.   

Joel McCrea is the everyman reporter Johnny Jones sent to cover what was *not* being reported in the newspapers in America, where the newspaper editor Mr. Powers (Harry Davenport) takes an interest when first hearing about him, “Hmmm, beat up a policeman, eh? Sounds ideal for Europe,” but not before changing his name (from his secret files of names) to one more befitting the sound of a foreign correspondent, giving him the ridiculous byline Huntley Haverstock.  Sent to cover a peace movement organization led by Stephen Fisher (Herbert Marshall), which newspapermen cynically think is the work of well wishing amateurs that have little hope of stopping a battle trained army sent on a mission of nation destruction and obliteration, he quickly discovers that the only views he’s really interested in are from the candid and straight-talking daughter of the leader, Laraine Day as Carol Fisher, where screwball comedy perhaps best describes their rapid-fire dialogue that almost completely advances the love interest.  But they continually get interrupted and separated by quckly developing events on the ground, as Johnny witnesses the assassination of Van Meer (Albert Bassermann), an important Dutch diplomat, in a tribute to a similar scene where a man gets shot in the eye in front of a large crowd on the Odessa Steps of Eisenstein’s BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN (1925), where here the gunman is disguised as a photographer and escapes in the rain underneath a crowd of umbrellas with Johnny in hot pursuit, ending in a extended car chase sequence out into the windmills of Holland, where the car they are chasing simply disappears.  One of the best sequences of the film is Johnny’s internal search of one of those windmills where he finds the car stashed, where the geometric structures are so fully utilized, using a heavily stylized interior set design by Alexander Golitzen and cinematography by Rudolph Maté, where he hides in the tight corners and vertical stairways, evading a large operational gear system that suggests Chaplin’s MODERN TIMES (1936), where he actually loses his coat in the gears and has to follow the circular motion to grab it back, where he witnesses a meeting of the kidnapping team, accidentally stumbling onto Van Meer who was supposedly shot, as a double was used to make the world think he was dead, where he has instead been drugged and continually interrogated for secret information. 

Of interest, the Nazi’s are never named or identified as the enemy, nor are there references to Germany’s military advances in Eastern Europe, but the extensive network of criminals all speak German and continually look suspicious.  The intense action apparently brings together the two would-be lovers, who finally succumb in each others arms with instant plans for marriage, where written into the script is Hitchcock’s own eccentric marriage proposal to Alma Reville, his wife for over 50 years.  Of course, by the time Johnny gets police to the crime scene, they have all but disappeared, leaving many to question his version of events.  Their plans to announce their engagement to her father get thwarted when Johnny sees one of the kidnappers working for Fisher, which she identifies as a loyal family employee, which certainly takes some of the steam out of the marriage and ratchets up the intrigue, as Fisher attempts to construct an unsuspecting net around Johnny to maintain his silence, while he seems to be the one behind the dastardly assassination and kidnapping plot, continuing to hide behind his cover as a credible peace movement activist.  Meanwhile, Johnny hasn’t filed a single report of what he’s uncovered since the day he arrived, stymied by his affection for Carol, where in his view, “I'm in love with a girl, and I'm going to help hang her father.”  This moral dilemma pales in contrast to the political events of the hour, as Britain is rapidly advancing into war against Germany.  The source material for the film is Vincent Sheean’s own autobiographical account, Personal History, of when he got his start as a reporter covering the growing political turmoil in Europe.  The complexity of the historical era is beautifully portrayed as a series of government lies, deceits, and betrayals, where the actual studio settings resemble the crowded London subway station, Westminister tower, or Holland’s flat plains, and the many action sequences are a marvel of detail and construction, which continue throughout the film, right down to the last few scenes where Hitchcock films a particularly enthralling TITANIC (1997) disaster-at-sea special effects sequence, enhanced by none other than William Cameron Menzies.  The final added-on scene of Johnny reporting the news in Europe back to America on radio broadcasts while bombs are falling behind him extends the screaming intensity of the madness of war, where the love aspect also recalls Michael Powell’s divinely romantic postwar film, STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN (1946), where a British air force pilot deliriously falls madly in love with the voice of an American WAC air traffic controller after his plane’s been shot down and he’s heading rapidly to the ground in his last few seconds of life.  Now that’s a war romance.            

Note—Hitchcock is seen early in the movie walking in front of Johnny Jones reading a newspaper.