Light At The Edge of the World

Directed by Kevin Billington. Written by Tom Rowe and Rachel Billington. (Based on the novel by Jules Verne.
Starring Kirk Douglas, Yul Brynner and Samantha Eggar.
1971, 120 minutes, Color, Originally rated GP.

Douglas is a Lighthouse attendant on a remote island, and Brynner is the very cultured leader of a ruthless pack of pirates who take over the island. The pirates have seized the island so that they can redirect passing ships onto the rocks. They then kill all the survivors and take their belongings, you see. Eggar is a damsel that Douglas has to rescue at some point. There is a battle of wits, and ultimately of brawn.

This was surprisingly interesting. While there are some problems--poorly done day for night photography, poor model work and poor dummy-falling-off-a-cliff--it is nevertheless quite engaging in a somewhat goofy way.  The movie kind of works because Douglas and Brynner were still young enough to pull this sort of thing off. It was filmed almost entirely on an actual island and there are many scenes of Douglas doing apparently dangerous things.

The DVD used a foreign release print and contains additional scenes of violence that were not part of the original US release.   It's fair to say that these scenes were cut to avoid an 'R' rating.

Douglas appears to be really hanging off the side of a cliff here.