![]() ![]() ![]() Far more tragic, in fact: Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander play an unhappily-childless couple looking after a lighthouse near Australia.Ĭircumstances contrive to send them an infant and they decide to raise it as their own. We end as we began, near enough-on the other side of the world with a tragic tale of love and loss. Incidentally, television is technically beyond the remit of this film-based feature but if we're talking about scary lighthouses, an honourable mention should be made for the Doctor Who serial The Horror of Fang Rock, which properly lives up to its title. Most terrifyingly of all, young buck Robin Askwith-he of the Confessions. It's a touch uneven but contains enough elements to make it worthwhile-the deserted lighthouse, murders in the fog and hints of antique evils. Trouble is, no one is sure which one's which.īut the war ended, the secret agents went home and lighthouses stood idle (apart from keeping ships from crashing, obviously) until it was realised they would make a great setting for horror movies, especially if they were located on a lonely island. The Seventh Survivor is yet more, very entertaining, evidence of this: after a passenger ship is torpedoed, six survivors-and a U-Boat captain-wash up at a lighthouse, and not one but two of these are agents, one British, one Nazi. Just what was it about wartime secret agents and lighthouses? Whether serving Axis or Allies, it would seem they just couldn't keep away from maritime beacons, at least if the movies are to be believed. But Adolf's boys don't have a chance with the big-hearted one snapping at their heels: no wonder the war ended just three years after this film was originally released. Back-Room Boy is his best film he plays the titular functionary whose exile to a remote lighthouse is disrupted by evacuees, chorus girls and, of course, Nazi spies. In an age of total war, the British state heaved everything they had at the enemy naval blockades, aerial bombardments and-perhaps most terrifyingly of all-"Big Hearted” Arthur Askey. Lust, loss and lighthouses-what more could you want? ![]() Made in 1931, it is the story of passion and betrayal, set in a remote lighthouse on the other side of the world where a frustrated keeper's wife falls for a handsome ship-wrecked mariner with less than happy consequences. If you've ever dreamed of escaping the mainland to run an actual lighthouse but were deterred by the cold and crushing isolation it would involve, this one's for you.Ī forbidding title, set in a forbidding place-but a film that's something of an unsung classic. ![]() They're the stars of The Lighthouse, keeping the bulbs burning on the remote New England coast and going a bit crackers in the process.Ī fine excuse, then, for a retrospective sweep over other such films and that's just what we offer below: celebrations of the romance and excitement of the keeper's life. Where would we be without lighthouses, eh? It would be bad enough that ships were dashed 'pon the cruel rocks with loss of life and livelihood but even worse (well, maybe) we'd lose an intriguing setting for feature filmsīecause lighthouses make a great location for movies, something that Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson demonstrate again this very month. ![]()
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