Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6731 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-11-13
• Rating: Universal, suitable for all
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 105 minutes

Synopsis
A film adaptation of the dangerous 1912 expedition to conquer the South Pole. Scott's intrepid team are beaten by the Norwegians in the Arctic race and the heroic journey ended in catastrophe. The bravery of the ill-fated explorers as they battled blizzards on the glaciers captured the hearts of the British public and became a legend.

Customer Reviews

Printing the legend
The Brits love nothing so much as their heroic failures, and Scott of the Antarctic is pretty much the poster boy for Imperial underachievers, thanks in part to the publishing success his very heavily edited diary (none of those crabby bits blaming everyone else for his own mistakes made the cut) and a neat bit of mythmaking from J.M. Barrie, who invented a fictional heroic death for him. Surprisingly, although it doesn't dare to criticize and does play down Scott's awkwardness and snobbery, Ealing's beautifully lensed color epic holds back from deifying him, offering a more sober portrait than you might expect. Amundsen is purely an offscreen presence here, despite proffering the sneaking suspicion that he's a bit of a bounder and a cad for getting there first by being competent (not the British way of exploring at all!), and legendary Norwegian Arctic pioneer Nansen only gets a brief look in (and no mention of his affair with Scott's wife: goodness, no!), but then this is more a film about stoic endurance in the face of `bad luck' (rather than bad leadership and bad planning) than the race for the South Pole. John Mills is surprisingly good casting for Scott, his slight awkwardness with others suggesting he'd done his homework (his gutted reaction to reaching the Pole second is convincingly bitter), and the supporting cast is full of welcome mainstays of the British film industry - Kenneth More, James Robertson Justice (without a beard for once!), Reginald Beckwith et al. Although the integration with the studio work isn't always entirely convincing, the location photography is genuinely staggering and Vaughn Williams score is impressively forlorn.

No extras, but a good transfer.

Makes you feel the cold just watching.
Another great John Mills film this time as the explorer Robert Scott.The film was brillant great cinematography.The movie makes you feel cold just watching it.This badly needs to be restored it is highly watchable but picture does need a bit of a clean up.No extras here either.Still a great film to add to your collection

This is the version to get
If you're after a copy of Scott of the Antarctic starring John Mills, with the superb filmscore by Vaughan Williams, this Optimum Classic is the transfer to get. Given the age of the film (released 1948), the colour photography is vibrant, and the sound crisp and clear in this transfer. Don't make the mistake I made of ordering 905 Entertainment's cheaper but very inferior transfer available from Amazon.com (this looks as if it was trasferred from a video copy, with colours washed out - looking rather like coloured-in black and white - and a soundtrack that sounds both muffled and harsh).