Saw EDGE OF ETERNITY for the very first time, and thought it a very smart and intriguing murder mystery with a wonderful Grand Canyon setting. Cornel Wilde is in fine form as the deputy sheriff trying to solve the case and to also save his and his bossβ positions. It is a clever whodunit that had me playing guessing games throughout (and ultimately guessing wrong β see the spoilers).
Spoilers:
My initial guess was that it was county attorney who was the one up to no good. He certainly was quite anxious to replace the current sheriff (Edgar Buchanan) with his own man. And of course, he would have needed help digging those rich mineral deposits out of the Kendon mines. And so who would show up in this movie, but the late great Jack Elam, a heavy in so many other films. So naturally, knowing that history, I had assumed that Elamβs Bill Ward was in cahoots with the county attorney. I couldn't have been more wrong (with both the county attorney and Ward), and it was actually nice to see Elam playing a good guy for a change. The only person I did guess who was in on this was Bob Kendon, only after Kendonβs sister told Cornel Wilde that by trait, he was a geologist and liked to fly planes (and of course, had an extreme dislike of his father- stealing from his mine was probably not a bad way to extract some sort of revenge).
It had to take two viewings for me to fully absorb the motives. The surprise visit by R.W. Whitmore, is really only pieced together by Cornel Wildeβs assumption, that perhaps he found out someone was illegally stealing the from the mine, and that Whitmore wanted to investigate it for himself, but doing it anonymously (hence why had paid cash to buy the car, instead of renting it and no initials or name on his luggage). Of course, everything else is explained by Mickey Shaughnessyβs Scotty OβBrien, the mastermind of this criminal plot.
In some ways, greed had a part to play in this as well. Closing the mines during WWII was understandable because of the needed manpower. But once the war was over, Kendon should have reopened them, but just sat there waiting and waiting until the price of gold would eventually go up and match or surpass those of other industrialized countries. All of that gold sitting there and not being extracted, so naturally, one might take advantage of stealing some for himself.
And of course, the other great character in the movie was the Grand Canyon itself. I donβt recall seeing another movie, or T.V. show that took advantage of the Canyonβs great beauty and enormity. Usually, in other shows, we just get that one static shot of the Canyon. Or we hardly see it at all β think Clark Griswold in VACATION, but there I could understand his situation!
That climax in the bucket was something to behold. Bravo to the stunt people involved. Today, CGI would have helped out in the process, but I donβt think it would have looked as exciting. Practical effects can sometimes do the trick much better!
Thumbs way up on this movie. Thanks Hobnob for recommending it!
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hobnob53
10 years ago
Hey Big-G, that's some review! You came up with some very interesting potential suspects and for reasons I never thought of. You also seem to have delved into a lot of it more than I have and gotten even more out of the movie than me.
Of course, with IMDb's new method of blocking out spoilers, your post looks like my redacted FBI file! But maybe that's appropriate for a mystery.
Anyway, I'm glad to have recommended it to you and even happier you enjoyed it so much and found so much in it. Thanks for boosting it here!
And now for your third viewing...!
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Big G-2
10 years ago
Of course, with IMDb's new method of blocking out spoilers, your post looks like my redacted FBI file! But maybe that's appropriate for a mystery.
Ha! That is exactly what it looked liked! I couldn't help myself. A lot to cover, but did not want to spoil it for anyone.
It was just like THE BIG CIRCUS. I made assumptions on who the bad guy could have been based on an actor's previous roles. I sometimes think I watch too many movies for my own good! Anyway, I always love it more so when it is not how I predicted it. And of course, I love how Grand Canyon was greatly utilized. It became a very important character in the movie. I know there have been other films and T.V. shows that have shot in GC, but never like this. Who knows how much red tape Columbia Pictures had to go through with the Department of the Interior to have shot these scenes.
Anyway, thanks again Hobnob for introducing me to this movie!
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hobnob53
10 years ago
I remember reading a few years ago that the studio was one of the last entities to get permission to fly planes through the Grand Canyon and do other little things like push a car over a cliff into it and stuff. The guano mining company was a real corporation but it was only in business at the Canyon for about 18 months, so the timing of the movie in being filmed while "the bucket" was still in operation was unexpectedly good, and they don't permit mining or tram facilities there any more. Overall, therefore, this was basically the last film to be able to utilize the grandeur of the Grand Canyon for destructive purposes.
It did occur to me that instead of invoking blacked-out lines you could have just as easily begun your review with the word "spoilers" in capital red letters before hitting the text as fair warning to all newcomers. True, that would run the risk of inadvertently giving the casual reader a peek at some of the plot aspects, but on the other hand the post wouldn't have resembled the copy of GM's interoffice memo on ignition key problems that they turned over to the Justice Department. I think IMDb's former means of blocking spoilers, by simply having the word written over and over in red (approximately spoiler-spoiler-spoiler), looked a lot less obtrusive. The first time I saw the new version I thought I was being disciplined for some violation of the site's rules!
I've shown both Edge of Eternity and, earlier, The Big Circus to my weekly classic movie group. In the latter, I said nothing beforehand about the villain, but I heard the audience gasp when they found out his real identity and in my closing remarks asked, "So, you all thought Vincent Price was the bad guy, didn't you?!" For EOE I framed my remarks to disguise the killer's true identity, but did ask at the end how many saw the villain coming. None did, but for some reason it didn't hit them as hard as The Big Circus.
Funny you mentioned that film in connection with this one on this aspect, but we do seem to have many cinematic things in common.
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Marlburian
9 years ago
Thanks to Big G-2 for his post of September 29, 2014. I watched EOE on Britain's Film 4 channel yesterday (for the second time) and was very impressed. I did wonder about one or two points, including the presence of R E Whitmore, but he's suggested a convincing reason.
I thought that the murder that viewers saw later in the film, with the victim looking straight at the camera so we didn't see who was the murderer, was a bit contrived.
And Big G-2 is also correct about the performance of the stunt people - as good, if not better, than a comparable scene in a James Bond movie.
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