FIRST SHOWINGS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 80, 1 October 1938, Page 7

FIRST SHOWINGS

OUTSTANDING FILMS

SOUTH POLE EPIC

NEW FILM AT ST. JAMES

Fashions change, even in Polar explorations. The world was long in learning, a generation ago, that Robert Falcon Scott, R.N., and four companions, had died somewhere hi the wilds of Antarctica on their return from a dash to the South Pole. Today, it is the fashion for trained newspaper reporters to send daily messages and for trained explorers to sit solitary in the gloom of an Antarctic night, contributing to scientific achievement the thought that the art of sitting for days on a flag-pole has strange twists and variations. .

Captain Scott and his companions contributed to Polar exploration a classic case of courage hounded by misfortune. A foolhardy courage, perhaps; nevertheless, that sort of courage which has been described as the great essential of mankind. And it is salutary, therefore, to be reminded of it in the film, "Scott's Last Expedition," which began a season at the St James Theatre yesterday. It is pleasant to report that the public is in no danger, after attendance at the film, of developing the belief that Robert Falcon Scott in features and mannerisms was curiously similar to Mr. George Arliss or Mr. Paul Muni. It is pleasant to report that the actors in the film are ihe Scotts. the Wilsons, the Evans, the Oates, and the Cherry-Garrards who really believed that the contribution of two or three years of their life towards the gain of the ephemeral glory of first to the South Pole was worth while The cameraman was Mr. Herbert G. Ponting, photographer to the expedition. And he has caught for an hour the atmosphere of an expedition which began so hopefully and which ended so tragically. Mr. Ponting wrote a book, "The Great White South," on his return from the expedition. He filled it with compellingly lovely photographs. And his readers will recognise in the occasional stills of the film some of the pictures used in the book. The unforgettable snapshot of the frostbitten fingers of Dr. Wilson's hand, the iceberg shaped like a Norman castle, and one or two more are in tho film.

"Scott's Last Expedition" is a restrained account of the sidelights which led to the great assault. It, gives.an idea of the immense difficulties imposed by natural conditions in any attempt to reach the Pole. It tells, with commendably little of the "land-of-hope-and-glory" atmosphere, how Scott and his companions struggled on against blizzards and physical weaknesses, how they wasted a day gathering rocks subsequently of immense value to geologists, how, finally, the storm overtook them, and how they died within 11 miles of their next food depot. But the film tells, too, a little of southern sidelights, with one dramatic scene of bkiller whales attacking young seals. It shows Scott and the camp at football in 50 degrees of frost. It shows the "Terra Nova plunging through a wild storm soon after leaving, Lyttelton. And what, the film does not tell, Mr. Ponting, in a notably fine commentary, tells attractively and well. It is a good film; in the circumstances of its making, a remarkable film. Combined with good shorts, including a splendid "March of Time," it is a programme of great merit. And even if the after-feeling is sadness that men should have done so much for so little reward, there is also the feeling that the lonely, lingering death of Scott and others was not without its lessons