Scott of the Antarctic (1948)

Scott of the Antarctic is a 1948 film which depicts Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition and his attempt to be the first to reach the South Pole in Antarctica. John Mills played Scott, with a supporting cast which included James Robertson Justice, Derek Bond, Kenneth More, John Gregson, Barry Letts and Christopher Lee.

Produced by Ealing Studios, the film was directed by Charles Frend and largely shot at the studios, with some landscape and glacier exteriors shot in the Swiss Alps and in Norway.; no actual scenes were made in Antarctica, though some pre-war stock footage from Graham Land may have been used. The film was made in Technicolor. The script was by Ivor Montagu, Walter Meade and the novelist Mary Hayley Bell, Mills' wife. The film is also known for its score by Ralph Vaughan Williams that was later reworked into his Sinfonia antartica.

The film is largely faithful to the real events of the ill-fated polar trek, with emphasis on the stoic character of Scott and the hostility of the Antarctic environment.

Synopsis

Captain Scott is given the men, but not the funds, to go on a second expedition to the Antarctic. As his wife works on a bust of him, she tells him that she's "not the least jealous" that he's going to the Antarctic again. The wife of a Dr. E. A. Wilson whom Scott hopes to recruit has a very different opinion from Scott's wife, but Wilson agrees to go. Scott also visits Fridtjof Nansen, who insists that a polar expedition must use only dogs, not machines or horses. Scott goes on a fundraising campaign, and despite popular scepticism, manages to raise enough money to fund the expedition.

Actors