 |
| Kirk Douglas in Cap de Creus, Girona |
Kirk Douglas, born Issur Danielovitch; December 9, 1916, is an American actor, producer, director, and author. He is one of the last survivors of the industry's Golden Age.
After living an impoverished childhood with immigrant parents and six sisters, he had his film debut in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) with Barbara Stanwyck. Douglas soon developed into a leading box-office star throughout the 1950s and 1960s, known for serious dramas, including westerns and war movies. During a sixty-year acting career, he has appeared in over 90 movies, and in 1960 helped end the Hollywood Blacklist.
After living an impoverished childhood with immigrant parents and six sisters, he had his film debut in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) with Barbara Stanwyck. Douglas soon developed into a leading box-office star throughout the 1950s and 1960s, known for serious dramas, including westerns and war movies. During a sixty-year acting career, he has appeared in over 90 movies, and in 1960 helped end the Hollywood Blacklist.
Kirk celebrates his 100th anniversary today and we want to celebrate this event talking about one of his films that was filmed in Cap de Creus, Girona, the more oriental spot of the Iberian Peninsula.
More information: Biography.com
Tina Picotes, an expert in Mediterranean culture, is going to explain us the secrets of this film The Light at the Edge of the World, an adaptation of Jules Verne's original book.
 |
| Cap de Creus Lighthouse |
The Light at the Edge of the World is a 1971 adventure film, adapted from Jules Verne's classic 1905 adventure novel The Lighthouse at the End of the World (Le Phare du bout du monde). The plot involves piracy in the South Atlantic during the mid 19th century, with a theme of survival in extreme circumstances, and events centering on an isolated lighthouse.
The year is 1865. Will Denton (Kirk Douglas) is a jaded American miner escaping a troubled past. Seeking isolation for two reasons, to mend his broken heart after a failed romance during the California Gold Rush, and also to escape punishment after he murdered a man in a gunfight, Denton tends a lonely and isolated lighthouse with a minimal crew of three men, himself included.
More information: Cadaqués.eu (Catalan Version)
The lighthouse sits on a fictional rocky island adorned with many caves carved by the crashing waves of the Atlantic Ocean; it is however set in the geographic location of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago at the southern tip of South America. Before the building of the Panama Canal, the waters off Cape Horn were perhaps the busiest and richest shipping lanes in the world, all shipping between Europe and the western coast of America had to go around the Cape, and therefore very lucrative.
 |
| Will Denton (Kirk Douglas) in Cap de Creus |
Denton is contented to retreat from the world and be away from the problems of civilization, and quickly adjusts to his new supervisor, old Argentine sea dog Captain Moriz (Fernando Rey) and his youthful assistant Felipe. A shipload of utterly malicious and sadistic pirates show up, murder everyone they can find, and extinguish the light. They are wreckers, brigands who mislead ships into the rocks to loot the cargo and prey upon the victims. Their leader Captain Jonathan Kongre (Yul Brynner) is a diabolical fiend with a seductive and charismatic facade.
More information: Històries de mar (Catalan version)
Denton hides out in the caves and amongst the rocks, hiding from the pirates. He saves Italian wreck survivor Montefiore from the pirates' massacre, and together they wage a war of guerrilla tactics against Kongre and his cutthroats.
 |
| Salvador Dalí and Kirk Douglas on set |
Kongre breaks his own rule by keeping one captive alive, a beautiful Englishwoman named Arabella (Samantha Eggar).
Montefiore is captured while creating a diversion for an attempt by Denton to rescue Arabella, who however opts for remaining with Kongre.
On the next day, Kongre has Montefiori flayed alive on his ship, trying to draw Denton out of hiding, but Denton shoots Montefiori from afar. Angered, Kongre gives Arabella to his men and withdraws to the lighthouse. Denton uses the pirates' cannon to sink their ship, along with all the pirates except for Kongre.
The finale of the film is a showdown between the only two survivors left on the island, Denton and Kongre.
You know, you have to have some inner philosophy
to deal with adversity.
Kirk Douglas
a very unusual and compelling film
ReplyDelete