The Edge of the World **** (1937, Niall MacGinnis, Belle Chrystall, John Laurie, Finlay Currie, Eric Berry ) – Classic Movie Review 7907

Writer-director Michael Powell puts heart and soul into The Edge of the World, his deeply felt and involving 1937 black and white film about life on Hirta, a bleak, remote Shetland Island, an Outer Hebridean island fishing port, which is to be evacuated after its supplies of peat start to run out.

Peter Manson (John Laurie) and Andrew Gray (Niall MacGinnis) want to stay, but Robbie Manson (Eric Berry) campaigns for the evacuation: tragedy and heartache are just around the corner.

It is Powell’s passion for his subject, the place and his characters that makes this movie. But also to be admired is the superb, striking semi-documentary-style filming mostly on location on Foula, Shetland, Scotland, and fine acting from people like MacGinnis (who was Irish), Currie (as James Gray) and Laurie, as well as, for authenticity, appearances by the people of the island of Foula.

Powell has a cameo as yachtsman Graham. Also in the cast are Belle Chrystall, Grant Sutherland, Campbell Robson, George Sumners, Kitty Kirwan, Francesca Reidy and Hamish Sutherland.

It runs 81 minutes, or 62 minutes in the 1940 re-issue or 74 minutes in the 1990 National Film Archive restoration. Originally four hours of footage was shot on the island of Foula but it was edited down to 81 minutes by Derek N Twist.

In the late Seventies Powell returned with the surviving cast and crew to make a documentary, Return to the Edge of the World (1978).

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7907

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