Reviews & Ratings for
Scott of the Antarctic More at IMDbPro »

Filter:

Best Chronological Prolific Authors Loved It Hated It Hide Spoilers:

Page 1 of 4:

[1] [2] [3] [4]

Index

32 reviews in total

---

22 out of 28 people found the following review useful:
An inspiring and timeless film, 23 February 2003
Author: leonard-1 (leonard@keyserkill.com) from MIddleburgh, NY, USA

The Ealing Studios production `Scott of the Antarctic' is a work of art and an inspiration to human achievement. The film depicts the polar explorers of the Second Scott Antarctic Expedition (1910-1913). They are portrayed first as pygmies against the terrible backdrop of the ice continent, then as dauntless giants within the enclosed spaces of their fragile tents as they await their certain death.

The mood of the film is High Victorian, although strictly speaking the setting is Late Edwardian. Edward Adrian Wilson, the artist, played by Harold Warrender, is the quintessential gentleman naturalist. As the film begins, Wilson is shown in the summery garden of his tranquil country homestead in England, meticulously creating a scientific illustration of a mounted bat. At the end, when Wilson is among the few remaining explorers who face frozen death in their wind-whipped tent, his spirit drifts away to his English home.

The Victorian faith in mechanisms is brought forth by close up shots of distance-measuring wheels that are attached to the backs of clumsy man-drawn sledges, and by the heroic but flawed powered tractors that break down in the awful cold.

The film invites the viewer to arrive at his or her own conclusions about the character of Captain Scott. The film makes no judgments - it merely portrays Scott through the superb acting of John Mills.

`Scott of the Antarctic' is a timeless film about eternal values: human endeavor, achievement and triumph.

---

11 out of 11 people found the following review useful:
"Print the legend", 19 August 2006

Author: ianlouisiana from United Kingdom

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Mr John Mills is magnificent as Captain Robert Falcon Scott,a Victorian Gentleman Adventurer out of his time.Soon enough the world he occupies will be irrevocably changed on the killing fields of the Great War for civilisation.Expeditions such as his will no longer be redolent of the Wardroom vs the Lower Deck.What passes in the British psyche for egalitarianism will infiltrate all fields of endeavour.Mr Mills conveys courage without actually doing anything courageous,a challenge to the finest of actors."Scott of the Antarctic" was a prestigious production in 1948,in the twilight of the British Empire's last gleaming.Captain Scott was widely regarded as a worthy successor to Raleigh,Cooke,Stanley and Rhodes,adventurers whose names we hardly dare to speak in the 21st century.His brand of bloody-minded determination has been replaced by the "yeah,whatever...."culture. As expedition leader Scott was as much a victim of the hierarchical society as his humblest hewer of wood and drawer of water.Leadership was the prerogative of his class regardless of their abilities. In 1948 we watched the movie without the benefit of nearly sixty years of hindsight.It may be flawed as a historical document,but as a cinematic achievement it is worthy of a place in the top rank of British Cinema.Much of its impact is dulled on the small screen of course,you never get the sense of the futility of the small figures struggling across the ice,the insignificance of man in the face of raw nature yet at the same time his indomitability that can be conveyed in a movie theatre.If the truth about Scott does not live up to the legend perhaps,as a tribute to a brave man,we should as John Ford said in "The man who shot Liberty Vallance"....."Print the legend".

---

15 out of 19 people found the following review useful:
Beautiful movie, 4 April 2005

Author: ubercommando from London

OK, we've heard a lot about the "real" history and the debate over whether Scott was a hero or a complete imbecile. Whatever the truth is and whatever revisionist or hagiography history is being peddled, "Scott Of The Antarctic" is a beautifully made film: One of the best looking early colour films which evokes a bye-gone era and is strangely compelling and haunting at the same time. The music by Vaughn-Williams, the greatest British classical composer of his time, is powerful and, again, haunting. In some scenes, they've recreated exactly some of the photos taken during the Scott expedition. The casting is spot on; look at the original photos and Millsy is uncannily like Scott, Kenneth More is Teddy Evans, Reginald Beckwith and James Robertson Justice do their real counterparts well and John Gregson, in one of his first film roles, captures Tom Crean perfectly (compare his performance with Paul McGann's Crean in "Shackleton", which was pretty good). Many film critics feel that "Scott of the Antarctic" was somewhat robbed at the 1949 Oscars.

---

22 out of 33 people found the following review useful:
Scott was a hero, but..., 3 August 2000
Author: vaughan.birbeck from Solihull, England

There is a general feeling, already noted here, that this film whitewashes Scott and turns him into a heroic figure. This is not surprising when you consider that when it was being made survivors of the expedition and relatives of those who died (particularly Kathleen Scott) were still alive.

Nevertheless, the film does raise some questions about Scott's leadership and judgement: his desperation to be first at the Pole with inadequate planning and resources; his last-minute decision to take a fifth man to the Pole when supplies had been calculated for a four-man team; the fact that none of these questionable decisions are challenged by subordinates bound by Royal Navy discipline.

The scenes at the Pole are particularly telling. When the British reach the Norwegian camp it is Wilson who enters their tent, while Scott tells Bowers to "check the position". Wilson's look of disgust emphasises Scott's refusal to face hard reality at a critical moment.

So, yes, this is the story of a "national hero", but watch it with care and it is far from uncritical.

---

10 out of 10 people found the following review useful:
Very well done film about Captain Scotts attempt to be the first to reach the South Pole, 17 January 2007

Author: Graham Watson from Gibraltar

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I have to pinch myself when I see this as I can't believe that it was made all the way back in 1948, almost 50 years ago. The cinema photography is surprisingly good and the music score is haunting and rousing at the same time. The ability to feel that you are with the ill fated team at the South Pole was an incredible feat in it self. The costumes were excellent and the props they used were authentic ones used in Scotts expedition. The outdoor scenes were very effective and the visible deteriaton of Scotts team was probably as good as you could expect from the make up department in the immediate post war years. The acting was very good and the cast were all very believable in their respective roles. The last 40 mins of the movie was the best and you really believed that they were at the South Pole in 1912 not some area in Greenland in 1948. Very absorbing viewing!

The only problem with the movie is that from an historical point of view is that it all paints a very romantic and heroic picture of Scott. Of course as time has elapsed, this view is not shared by everybody. Evidence has come to light, as well as expert opinion and analysis that calls into question this notion and that in fact it was a tragedy created by hubris and basic errors which could have been avoided. Also, were some of Scotts diaries carefully doctored by Scotts wife or things deliberately omitted ? Was the account on Scotts own request changed, or did his wife and relatives take it upon themselves to do this to enhance his image and keep his reputation intact? I've heard stories that raise these questions and seen the occasional documentary which is critical of Scotts actions. Was this all an early 20th Centuary variation on spin? I'll let others argue and speculate over that but I do have a few observations and opinions on this.

Revisionist history questions many things that we have taken for granted over the years and Scotts expedition is just one of many events that is being revised. The idea that people would distort the truth for commercial reasons i.e. to sell a book should certainly not put it past the realm of possibility, even back in 1912. What we do know is that when you just fall short from your objectives you question any number of things that might have made the difference! Man-hauling what was in all intensive purposes was a cast-iron bathtub stacked full of food and equipment over 800 miles was probably not the most efficient way of traveling. The weather conditions were so bad that apparently only three times since 1912 through the next 50 years was it as brutal and so cold. If they had made it to ONE TON base camp many of these questions would ever have been raised.

Remember, there was no satellite navigation, rescue vehicles, helicopters or aircraft and cell phones. These were explorers who were trying to get to the earth's South Pole and return for the first time, There was a lot at stake and risks had to be taken. Do people criticize Irving and Malory for failing to reach the summit of MT. Everest back in 1924. Nobody says that they should have waited 20 or 30 years until they had better equipment! You use the equipment and conditions that you have not the ones that you want! Was it really fair to use dogs, could this not be construed as cheating? Even after being beaten by Amudson by three weeks wouldn't have still been a greater achievement to have done it purely on there own without dogs? Did Scott deliberately just give up at the end, so disappointed at missing out after so much work? Did he think that his reputation would be enhanced if he died rather than make it back? Possibly, but the physical and mental state of Scotts party should not be easily be over looked or dismissed as a contributing factor to them succumbing to the unusually cold conditions. Also, after so many weeks in the bitter cold, under nourished, suffering from malnutrition, frost bite and hunger, 11 miles might has well have been 1100 miles! There are limits to human endurance!

Today, when you here of people dying of hypothermia after just 2-3 days lost in the wilderness, look at what Scott and his team had to put up with. It's not a bad film, you watch it and make your own judgment!

---

22 out of 35 people found the following review useful:
A Moving but Distorted Account of Scott's Disaster, 11 September 1999
Author: Kirasjeri from Brooklyn NY

The first thing to remember is that Scott fouled up mightily in his attempt to be the first to reach the South Pole in 1912. He was stubborn, rather arrogant, yet malleable to the wishes of his wife. When his diaries were found on his frozen remains they were in fact later edited and altered by his wife (and the publisher) to depict Scott as a Great Heroic Figure. That was a lie; the depiction of him in the movie is a lie. And in recent years the unedited diaries were released proving the old myth was not the reality. It should be added the U.S. polar explorer Richard C. Byrd was an even bigger fraud - as his recently released personal notes also demonstrated.

This film is generally well done, and the Antarctic (actually Greenland, I believe) scenery is spectacular. The very slow deterioration of Scott's team is fascinating to see; their heartbreak upon viewing Raoul Amundsen's Norwegian flag flying over the Pole in the distance - meaning they had lost the race to the greatest of all explorers - is palpable. From then on it becomes a matter of survival and getting back home. Bit by bit the elements wear them down - untill they can finally go on no longer. When one says "I don't want to wake up tomorrow" with the wind howling just outside their little tent as they try to eat a morsel of cold food. . . you know it's over for them. Heartbreaking.

BUT THE CAUSE OF THE DISASTER IS NOT DELINEATED!! WHY did it happen? Bad luck? Scott's decision not to rely only on sled dogs? Yes. But his planning and leadership was also flawed badly - and that was not shown, as mentioned above.

I had no particular problem with the acting. It could possibly have been more emphatic and emotive, but then I assume the English were indeed as stoic as depicted in the film. Mills' understated Scott is to be expected as part of the MYTHICAL version of Scott - the REAL Scott I have no doubt was more emotional and weaker, as seen in the uneditied diary.

All in all, a moving film worth seeing - so long as you know this is not the reality of the Scott expedition but the cleansed version to make Scott and company as heroic as possible. If you want a better Arctic film try "The Red Tent", and check the reviews on the IMDb for background on it.

---

7 out of 7 people found the following review useful:
A Great Film -- Flawed, But Great, 21 April 2007

Author: jack_bagley from United States

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Sir John Mills is the quintessential Scott -- he even looks like the explorer in this film. The rest of the cast (Wilson, Evans, Oates, and Bowers especially) are also lookalike actors, similar to what was done in "Titanic" with the historic figures. Such movies have more "realism" to them if the actors resemble the characters they portray.

The movie is flawed in that it does not present what actually happened to Scott and his party all the way through, and does "hero-ize" the explorer and his polar party members more than they deserve. The death of Evans, for instance, is done far differently than what actually occurred, but has a true cinematic heroism to it. Evans did not die in Scott's arms, in the snow, as depicted -- he actually fell into a coma and died in the tent that night. And there is a bit of a fumble with Oates' dramatic last words, but only a slight one.

Scott as hero is evident in this film, and even though recent developments have reduced his stature in the eyes of the world, he should still be viewed for what he was -- a true explorer, alongside Shackleton (who does not get nearly enough of the credit he deserves), Amundsen, Peary, etc. Sure, they had their moments of being total jerks -- but don't we all?

For the last eighteen years, I have used this film in my middle-school classroom as a teaching tool during a unit on Antarctica. The story of the race between Scott and Amundsen is a classic tale and deserves to be told. There are probably much more useful films that students can see about the event, but for sheer beauty (yes, I know it was shot mostly in Greenland, but some scenes were indeed filmed down south) you cannot beat Scott of the Antarctic.

---

7 out of 8 people found the following review useful:
Gentle Error, 19 March 2007
Author: tedg (tedg@FilmsFolded.com) from Virginia Beach

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I had a choice between seeing this and "300," and I chose this.

Its because there is a certain kind of movie story based on nobility. There are only a few ways to do it. All of them abstract reality in a dramatic direction. But you know, war isn't inherently dramatic. Deprivation is. Struggling against nature is. Being incredibly flawed as a result of cultural blindness could be, depending on how it is handled.

The story here is of two teams competing to be the first to the south pole. For reasons unexplored here, it really mattered in the popular imagination who got there first. It was a matter of national pride, akin to whether a team wearing your emblem wins a game. Socially, I think all the steam went out of the explorer hero with the man-on-the-moon adventure where the feat really was a demonstration of national strength, capability, will. But in those days as recently as a hundred years ago, national pride was bound in the last generation of individuals who could be called explorers.

The Brits were particularly keen on this expedition because it was exploration largely divorced from imperial landgrabs. As with the moon shot, it was wrapped in scientific clothing as a thin excuse. The events in this movie happened before the first world war and the film was made after the second, when England was a different place, eager to seize on old models of what made then Brits. And because they are highly introspective, they'd want to look at their own foibles together with their strengths.

The facts are damning. The Norweigian fellow got there first. He made every decision matter, and he made all the right decisions. The British team made huge errors and miscalculations. They did have bad luck with weather, but it has to be noted that Amundsen (the Norweigian) had precisely the same weather to deal with.

What we see it remarkable. All the mistakes are seen only as the trigger for noble response, because after all is done, the English mind likes to think of its heroes as gentlemen who responded to adversity as gentlemen. And gentlemen they were; they chose not to rely on dogs, instead pulled the sleds with their own bodies for hundreds of miles. The reason? Dogs are our friends. Amundsen used dogs exclusively for transport, eating them along the way. The Brits carried books and other tokens of civilization, a huge burden while the Norweigian cut and cut and cut to the bone.

It has to be noted that the party froze only 11 miles from a cache of stores, so even 2 pounds over 1800 miles would have mattered. In the final legs where ounces mattered and they were tossing items from the sleds, they kept 30 pounds of "interesting rocks."

The film turns all this into a celebration of Englishness. One man was injured before beginning the final, disastrous leg. He could have said something and been replaced, but he didn't. His act alone damned the party. But we remember him as a gent, because at the end he politely informed his partners that he was going out of the huddled tent into a blizzard "and would be gone a while," never to be seen again.

But the most gentlemanly affect was Scott's writing in the journals as he knew doom approached. All the men wrote dear letters; they and the journals were found later in the tent with the frozen bodies. What we have of the story, we have from those writings, which we see written throughout the movie. The device is amplified by us hearing narration from the three last members of the party.

If you are interested in how film affects national identify, forming and reflecting it, shaping history and remembrance, and you want to escape war pictures which, so far are dull with few exceptions, then try this. Its the gentle thing to do.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

---

5 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
For valour..., 24 May 2007

Author: jc-osms from United Kingdom

There have recently been a lot of dramatised and documentary programmes on UK terrestrial and satellite TV on the pioneering polar explorers, erstwhile rivals and colleagues Scott & Shackleton so I was keen to view this British made dramatisation of the former's doomed 1912 expedition to the South Pole. I was not disappointed. It is obviously difficult to maintain cinematic excitement for the viewer of what is basically a long march (a similar problem as in "The Spirit of St Louis" and "The Old Man & the Sea"), but the true to life tragedy here proves compelling in the end. Jack Cardiff's colour photography is splendid and I was surprised to observe so few "process" shots for a film from the 1940s, given the scale of the task here. John Mills is excellent in the key role of Commander Scott but the supports are all excellent, many of them chosen for their physical similarity to their real life counterparts - Mills too bears a more than passing likeness of physiognomy to Scott. In the post - war climate, Britain obviously sought comfort and inspiration from past heroes as the country rebuilt itself in economic austerity and Scott must have been an ideal model for glorification. Regardless of sniping comments from historians about Scott's poor planning, the film quite rightly avoids judgements and asks the viewer to recognise and admire the human heroism of these gallant men. There is surely no more tragic sacrifice in all exploration than Oates' "I'm going outside, I may be gone some time" - exit and the movie captures this moment with the necessary pathos, later repeating the sensitivity as Scott and his last two colleagues expire with the so near and yet so far "11 miles" on their freezing lips. The Vaughan-Williams music is suitably sweeping and elegiac. One wonders why Hollywood ignored the film at the Academy Awards of 1948, certainly the acting, cinematography and music, to name but three, were worthy of recognition. I wonder if anyone would remake it in the modern era as we approach the centenary of the triumph and tragedy of Scott's expedition. Are you listening Peter Jackson...?

---

7 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
A Beautifully Shot Film, 28 October 2006

Author: natnce from United Kingdom

Although it verges on being a hagiography and cannot be considered to be historically accurate (what historical film is?), Scott of the Antarctic is a beautifully shot film with a great score and a solid cast. Some of the equipment from the actual expedition was used as props.

One of the other commentators on here makes mention of various failings of Scott's. Skis were depoted on the plateau due to poor surface conditions, as it was easier to haul without them and to carry them would have meant a considerable extra weight. Scott's own team depoted their skis, but went back for them when the conditions improved – they did after all have an extra 200 miles to travel than Teddy Evan's team. Taff Evans wasn't abandoned on the Beardmore: he was suffering from possible brain damage and unable to pull the sledge. Considering that they all faced death if they didn't make the next depot in time, the other expedition members went on ahead with the intention of letting him catch up, whereupon he collapsed and died. Out of Teddy Evans's returning party only Evans himself came down with scurvy as he refused to eat either seal or pony meat for months. The other two members of his team, Crean and Lashly, didn't come down with scurvy and when the bodies of Scott and his men were discovered, the signs of scurvy were not visible on them either.

Nansen DID use dogs on his attempt at reaching the North Pole in 1893-95, although his earlier crossing of Greenland was done by manhaul. Scott already had decided to take skis on his expedition BEFORE he met Nansen in Norway, as he had gone there to buy the skis and test the motorised sledges. In fact it was he showed Nansen his locally purchased skis that the great man suggested Scott taking Gran with him. Gran DID teach Scott's men the basics of skiing on the pack ice on the way south. Scott himself was as good a skier as the average Norwegian. There is no evidence of an affair between Kathleen Scott and Nansen as on the occasion in question she was staying with American friends, not in the hotel with Nansen. According to the evidence they were good friends and nothing more.

---

---

Page 1 of 4:

[1] [2] [3] [4]

Add another review

---

Related Links

Plot summary	Ratings	Awards
External reviews	Plot keywords	Main details
Your user reviews	Your vote history