The Secret Land

The oddly named O. O. Dull's last production is, according to Turner Classic Movies, an "authentic reproduction" of Byrd's 1946-47 expedition to the Antarctic, filled with sharp black-and-white photography and blotchy Technicolor footage, narrated by Robert Montgomery, Robert Taylor, and Van Heflin. This nicely edited documentary has some interesting shots of life aboard the ships and ice packs of Antarctica, and some staged shots of three or four admirals droning their lines. Always fun to look at penguins!

Telling the story of Byrd's 1946 expedition to Antarctica, this is narrated by Robert Montgomery, who himself had been in the service; this one has a whole buncha hollywood bigshots who had served in the military. Van Heflin, Robert Taylor. We were done with WW II, so now we could move on to exploring more places. We had all those war ships with nothing to do, so thirteen ships took the admiral down to Antarctica. We watch as some of the ships get stuck in the ice; they kidnap various types of seals to bring back to the U.S, set up tent-town on the ice shelf, and send out planes to map the area. Directed by Orville (Bunny !) Dull. last thing he did in hollywood. Pretty interesting for history buffs. Certainly gave the military something to do after being so necessary during WW II. won an oscar.

This documentary quite rightly won an Oscar for its efforts at showing the large scale exploration of Antartica undertaken by the United States military. The weather conditions were rather extreme, to put it mildly. I'd be curious to learn just how many cameras froze up during the expedition! The narration is capably handled by three prominent actors who also seved in the military during World War II and everything is very well-executed. Turner Classic Movies has been airing this fairly often in the last two or three years. Highly recommended.

Robert Montgomery, Robert Taylor and Van Heflin all narrate this documentary from MGM. It chronicles the US Navy's Antarctic expedition commanded by Admiral Byrd from 1946 to 1947. This was an enormous undertaking--involving 4000 men and many ships (including an aircraft carrier)! Unfortunately, the print I found of this film on archive.org is in terrible shape--which is really a shame since this film would be spectacular otherwise.

As I sat and watched this film, I couldn't help but admire the men and marvel at the insane conditions in which they worked. For example, the Navy flew very large C-47 (DC-3) from a carrier deck--using jet packs to force the lumbering planes into the air. There also is a portion where you learn about a plane crash and the crew was forced to spend two weeks waiting for help! I was also amazed to see that there is some relatively warm water in a snow-less region of Antarctic--all due to volcanic activity in the area. Overall, this is a very captivating and exciting film. You wonder at the naval cinematographers who recorded all this footage under horrific conditions!

If you do see this film, I also recommend you watch Werner Herzog's recent documentary "Encounters at the End of the World"--where he visits many of the same places you see in "The Secret Land". Two amazing films.

Secret Land, The (1948)

*** (out of 4)

Oscar-winning documentary from MGM takes a look at the dangerous expedition of Admiral Richard E. Byrd and thousands of American soldiers who tried to make it to Antarctica. The documentary, shot in beautiful Technicolor, shows the men leaving America and shows us the constant dangers of exploring one of the most dangerous places in the world (and especially at this point in history). If you're a fan of adventure then you're going to really eat this thing up. The film really plays out like an action film and it contains some pretty good drama as well as some great visuals. I'm really not sure how many cameras MGM sent to capture this footage but we get a lot of great stuff. Everything from the wildlife to a Christmas dinner to even a helicopter crashes into the sea are here for us to see and we get just about everything else that you can think of. One of the more dramatic moments happen towards the end when a plane crashes in the fog and two weeks later they're found alive but they're going to have to walk ten miles to reach a point where someone can get them. Knowing that all of this stuff is real just adds to the entertainment and the Technicolor also adds a lot. Robert Montgomery, Robert Taylor and Van Heflin narrate.