Edge of Eternity (1959)

The movie starts with an attempted murder at the Grand Canyon. Someone dies, but not the intended victim. He turns up dead not long after, though, and now a local deputy (Cornell Wilde) has a mystery to solve. The situation is complicated by the fact he could have met the victim before he died, but chased after a speeder (Victoria Shaw) instead.

The movie plays that, plus some past mistake the deputy made in a previous job, into a subplot about the county attorney trying to use this case to make the sheriff lose the next election. It doesn't really go much of any place, it's more there for Wilde to struggle with self-doubt for a bit as two more bodies pop up and he can't find the connection between them.

It's only an 80 minute film, but it doesn't feel rushed. I mean that in a good way. Wilde has time to interact with Shaw, have some conversations that slowly reveal useful information while building a relationship, as well as meeting her father, who owns a gold mine that's closed down until prices go up, and her lush of a brother. It's a decent mystery, as the clues are slowly unearthed, and not always how the audience might expect. Asking around about the victim to determine his identity at a guano mine inadvertently reveals the identity of his would-be killer.

The movie's just nicely put-together in that way. It also takes advantage of its location, with lots of aerial shots of the Grand Canyon and showcasing different terrain and walks of life. There's a big difference between the mine owner's nice ranch house (with a pool!) out in the desert and the corrugated metal structures people live and work in around the remains of the mines. The aerial shots even work with the plot, because it's such a huge area, so much of it that can't be traversed by cars, using a helicopter or floatplane to search.

The movie ends on a decent chase sequence that leads into a fight on top of a bucket lift as it descends into the canyon. My dad and I were trying to figure out where the stuntmen's safety harnesses were, but I never could see anything in the long distance shots (the up-close shots are clearly being done in front of a screen in a studio). I also don't know what the helicopter was hoping to accomplish. It's one of those flying eggbeaters like on MASH, nobody was going to try and jump to it.