Local Hero (1983)

The 1983 movie "Local Hero" is based on the story of a Texas oil company called Knox Oil that wants to buy a Scottish village. The agent, Mac MacIntyre, teams up with a local named Danny to help him with the negotiations. Mac is presumable the best person to send because he has Scottish roots. Things don’t go as expected because a local hermit named Ben Knox owns and lives on a crucial beach.

Although Mac doesn’t warm to the residents of the village he does admire the Scottish landscape. After a while he begins to adapt to the village way of life as he starts collecting shells and wearing woollen sweaters instead of suits. He realizes that the company’s plans will result in the demise of the village.

The residents of the village in the movie are eager to make money through the oil company. They are depicted as hard working people and this is brought out through the actors. Burt Lancaster, as Mac, does a superb job of showing the beauty of Scotland to the world. As a result, many visitors come to Scotland each year looking for some of the scenes that they recall from the movie.

The village in the movie did not actually contain the beach. They were actually on opposite sides of Scotland. The village pictured is Pennan and is surrounded by large bluffs. It is located on the northern coast where the Moray Firth meets the North Sea. Neither is there a phone booth. When the movie came out tourists came pouring into Pennan looking for the phone booth that the village decided to install one. Even though the beach used in the movie, Camusdarach Beach, is very remote, it does draw some visitors. The only way to reach it is by a dirt road and a very challenging climb.