Very Cool!!!

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

"Edge of Eternity" is without question the finest color photography I have ever seen. The colors of the Grand Canyon are displayed in razor sharp beauty, especially when viewing "Twilight Time's" limited edition Blueray. While the murder investigation is rather ordinary, and the love interest between Cornel Wilde and Victoria Shaw kills time, all is forgiven with the spectacular aerial photography, unbelievable stunts, and fabulous fifties cars on display. The highlight of course is seeing the U.S. Guano tram swinging wildly over the Canyon as Wilde and Mickey Shaughnessy engage in a gun battle. This is truly a one of a kind film, not for it's story, not for it's acting, but for the unforgettable photography and the unique and exciting climax. "Edge of Eternity" is a must see. - MERK

Don Siegel has an eye for the visuals in this mystery story set in the Grand Canyon but the plot and dialogue are merely serviceable.Deputy Sheriff Les Martin (Cornell Wilde) patrols the canyon area which includes an abandoned gold mine. He listens to a tall story told by an old timer of a beaten up guy he saw when he suddenly pursues Janice Kendon (Victoria Shaw) the daughter of a local mine owner who speeds past him and after he books her they begin flirting with each other.Pretty soon the deputy is investigating missing men, murders and looking into whether gold is being smuggled out of the mine works. You have an old coot, a drunken son, a hostile father, a foreman, a comic relief and any one of them could be the shady heavy.There is an entertaining climax with the cable cars high above the canyon and there seemed to be a real bat cave full of bat crap which was involved in the location filming. I think a bit of bat poo went into the script.

While flipping channels before leaving a hotel room, I caught sight of a screen view of Kingman's court house (Mohave County, AZ) and, moments later, a view of old main street (Beale Street). I hadn't time to watch the film, but as I'd lived in Kingman 25 years, I ordered the DVD out of curiosity to see what other old scenes it might offer.The film appears, indeed, have been shot entirely in the Kingman area of 1959, and the city is far smaller than the one I moved to in 1982. The Grand Canyon location within the film is today that of Grand Canyon West, a touristic site belonging to the Hualapai Reservation. Remains of the funicular link to what was once a guano mine below, as well as an auto that crashed to the bottom, are still visible as a part of the GCW tour loop. A few scenes appear to have been shot in old Oatman (a picturesque ghost mining town) and some others north of Red Lake on the way to Lake Mead.In regards to the film, I feel that 1.) its script lacks what might have been some obvious and logical improvements, 2.) its runtime needs extension by about 10 minutes to allow denouement of a number of subplots, and 3.) overall, the film is structured in a rather amateurish, low-budget fashion. Compared to many a Western film of the 1950s, however, this one is not so badly done and provides entertainment.Despite the above criticism, I - like another reviewer - found myself looking into Victoria Shaw's biography, wondering if I might explore her appearance in other films. Unfortunately, they are very few.

One thing you have to say for Don Siegel -- he managed to work in some scenic locations, in this case in and around the Grand Canyon. But this is a formula film, not an identifiably Siegel product. His favorite theme seemed to revolve around a person caught between the law and the underworld, siding with neither, on his own trip so to speak. And he was not a camera artist. There are no fancy shots in his movies, no epic explosions, no artsy compositions. It's all craftsmanship -- but it's really GOOD craftsmanship at its best. It's difficult after the fact to pin down exactly what his contribution was to his best films but he seemed to add something of his own to the script and to pull out unusual performances from otherwise ordinary actors.Take "Line Up", made about the same time as "Edge of Eternity." It's a relatively plain movie about dope smugglers but Siegel managed to put something extra in it. There's Robert Keith, nobody's idea of a finely tuned performer, doing something very odd with his intellectual reserve. And Siegel even manages to turn Vaughan Taylor (!) into a figure of menace even though he has no more than one or two lines of dialogue.Nothing like that happens here. Cornell Wilde is the upright sheriff. Edgar Buchanan his folksy boss. Mickey Shaughnessy is the heavy posing as the comic relief. There is the drunken wastrel of a son. There is the pure (if rather aggressive) girl after Wilde. Jack Elam as a regular hard hat. The plot is simplicity itself. A small group of nogoodniks are trying to smuggle gold out of an abandoned mind and commit a couple of murders along the way. The plot is foiled by Wild, ending in a fist fight aboard one of those dangling trams over the Grand Canyon, done better than the one in "Second Chance" but not as lengthy or exciting as the one in "Where Eagles Dare." No unusual guns are in sight. No bitterness or betrayal. The actors hit their marks, say their lines, and depart. It's as if Siegel were shadow boxing, warming up a bit.If there is anything outstanding about the film it's the gorgeous photography, crisp, colorful, sunny, and the scenery itself. The cars are equally magnificent, especially a long yellow convertible that glistens under the day-for-night sun. Yet it's engaging as these things go. It's formula movie making but it's not bad, anymore than Pythagoras' theorem is bad. It's just -- well -- just THERE. On the plus side, I never knew that bat guano was worth so much that even a considerable quantity would justify building a tram across the Grand Canyon. What would we do without bats?