SCOTT'S DASH TO THE POLE

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 24 March 1922, Page 5

SCOTT'S DASH TO THE POLE

FILM OF THE EXPEDITION.

TO FOSTEK THE SPIRIT OP

ADVENTURE,

LONDON, Jan. 26. Regular picture theatregoers, as well as those who are not, are looking forward with zest to the presentation of the first complete film record of the 1910-1913 Scott Antarctic Expedition, which Mr Herbert Ponting has decided to produce about next April, under the title "The Great White South." Parts of the series were shown a few years ago, but the war prevented the exhibition of the complete record.

This is now being arranged in such a manner as to strike an absolutely new note in the presentation of films. Moreover, it will at last be so complete that practically all that was possible to photograph will be shown, or at least as mu<!h of it as can be crowded into an entertainment of 2J hours. It will be a film of real adventure, vibrating with incident and interest from beginning to end. The whole of the natural history films will be included, as well as the most beautiful aspects of the magnificent scenery of the Far South. The life of the expedition will, of course, be dealt with in full detail, and also as much as it is possible to get in of the scientific work of the enterprise. Mf Ponting has aimed to make the film as monumental of the glorious adventure which it illustrates as it can possibly be made, and from start to finish the mere "arrangement of the film will have taken nearly a year to accomplish. He believes that if he gets the support from the press which so fine an episode in the annals of adventure deserves, there is no reason why the story of Scott should not become as perennial an attraction as "Peter Pan." And that is what it ought to be, for nothing more inspiring to the young can well be imagined. The King himself told Mr Ponting that he hoped every British boy might' see the pictures, as they would help to foster the spirit of adventure that made our Empire. And in these days there is need to encourage that spirit in every way' possible. It is believed that this film record will accomplish much.

Mr Ponting >s pictures traced in fairly close detail the progress of the expedition from the time when the Terra Nova left New Zealand until the evening of November, 1911, when he left Captain Scott, as no heavy apparatus such as a kinematograph camera could be carried beyond the point which had then been reached on the Great Ice Barrier. Various phases of the expedition were shown, from life on board the ship to the landing at Cape Evans and the work of the sledging parties. Although the actual kinematograph pictures ended with the parting of Captain Scott and Mr Ponting, there were also included photographs taken by Lieutenant Bowers at the Pole, showing Captain Scott and his comrades at their destination. There was also a picture of the monument erected over their bodies by the search party. Mr Ponting has spent many months in searching through the* thousands of feet of film for fresh incidents. He has already had many requests for the new film from foreign countries, and it is to form the sole attraction at a large Paris theatre during the summer Writing in the Times on the tenth anniversary of the arrival at the Pole of Scott and his companions, a correspondent suggested that this'day each year might well be marked by the reading to British boys of the noble story of that tragic defeat. Though such a record can never die, parents and school masters may do much to keep it in perpetual recollection. Less than two years after Scott's last words , were found the English qualities which the explorer proudly claimed had been shown in his journey, were subjected to a wider test. ."It may be that in the minds of the very young (but surely in no other) the war obscured this more limited but no less glorious adventure. For the sake," then, of the very young let the tale of heroism in defeat and in the valley of the shadow —such heroism as 'the English hold most dear—be recalled year by year. Nor should we forget that it is linked with the war by having been told to more than 100,000 of our troops in France, who always listened to incidents like Oates' self-sacrifice in subdued hush and quiet, having their own fine reason for being moved by them."