Scott of the Antarctic

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Paul G @RT67423558 Jun 10, 2022 I ashamed to admit I did not know how this story ended. I expected to hear the famous words "I'm going outside.. I might be some time", but other than that I did not know if they got to the antarctic and if they got back. I thought the film tells the story extremely well. True British stiff upper lip throughout. There are some dodgy model scenes at the beginning but once you get passed that the film settles down to a heroic story of adventure. Well worth watching. See more andy f @RT81936104 Feb 1, 2019 A solid telling of Scott's ill fated expedition. What comes through most is the bravado and jollity of the team almost right up until the end. This same spirit was clearly evident in They Shall Not Grow Old. People were made of more magical stuff one hundred years ago. See more Nov 28, 2018 A true classic of a time when you were allowed to be proud to be British. John Mills at his best as the heroic failure but a true hero nonetheless. Well made and a great supporting cazt. See more Aug 30, 2018 The film has remarkable production values and feels genuinely epic for a British film produced so soon after the war. Many scenes were clearly shot in some pretty inhospitable regions and I would swear that there were times when the main cast, and not merely the second unit with their doubles, was placed into these extremes. It shows in their performances. Unfortunately, the depth of their exploration is not matched by a similar depth of character. This is not a serious attempt at biography but a hagiography. Whether Scott was the saint depicted here is irrelevant: he is an affirmation of solid British values so recently questioned by six years of war and the erosion of the Empire. And as such there can be no conflicts, no disputes among any of these stiff-upper-lip paragons of English virtue. Which makes for pretty boring viewing. Oddly, there isn't even a sense of doom or forboding, a suggestion that the elements truly had it in for our heroes and that their deaths weren't really their fault since they only lost to a vindictive nature. In fact, the film doesn't offer any explanation for their failure oddly enough. The practical observation that Amundsen had brought his dogs all the way to the Pole is about all we get. No acknowledgement of why that is a big deal. It's only in the last half-hour as we watch the men slowly succumb to exposure and starvation that the drama really picks up and we start to feel something for the doomed expedition. This section is very gritty for a '40s film and captures the exhaustion and despair stalking the party. I do feel that some of the emotional moments could have been given a more dramatic presentation (Oates' "I'm leaving now. I may be gone for some time" seems rather mundane in context) but that's an issue with '40s English cinema in general. See more Sep 20, 2015 Tally ho chaps lets get to the South Pole first, before those pesky Norwegians. It was Sunday, i had a big pile of ironing; and this was absolutely perfect. See more Feb 24, 2015 good historical tragedy and story See more Read all reviews

Scott of the Antarctic

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