Shackleton's Captain

Capt. Frank Worsley of New Zealand deserves as much if not more recognition than his employer, Sir Ernest Shackleton in regards to the latter's Imperial Trans-Arctic Expedition. What Capt. Worsley accomplished on more than one occasion borders on miraculous. This docu-drama is enhanced with the outstanding work of Australian expedition photographer Frank Hurley. He managed to save numerous stills and silent film footage that speak to the conditions that the crew of "Endurance" had to exist in, or die. Well done production!

An outstanding docudrama which tells the true story of the Shackleton adventure from the perspective of Captain Worsley, the captain of Shackleton's ship "Endurance". The film gives us an accurate, rather than a popular sensationalist account, of the adventure in which Shackleton is revealed to be not as big a hero as he has been made out to be. Here we learn through a gripping portrayal of how the survival of the stranded adventurers depended on the skill and judgement of Captain Worsley, rather than Shackleton; and that Shackleton himself showed poor judgement in undertaking the expedition in the first place, given the pack-ice conditions. The filming combines contemporary footage and dramatised reconstructions with interviews of writers, mountaineers and other experts in the field. The narration is achieved through a dramatised portrayal of Captain Worsley giving a lecture to a small audience at a club in the 1920s, in the calm manner of an English gentleman. The information presented is accurate and great attention is given to the visual details using CGI in a subtle but highly effective way. The casting is spot on and the acting is excellent.

This excellent made for TV drama-documentary retell's the story of Shackleton's legendary 1915/16 expedition to the Antarctic but from the viewpoint of the captain of Endurance, Frank Worsley. It is, perhaps justifiably, a bit negative about Shackleton, but in any case you can't fail to be awed once more by the guys involved and the feats achieved. It's all rather well done, mixing Frank Hurleys images contemporary interviews and dramatic reconstructions well.

...you would never believe it. You would roll your eyes and complain about how ridiculous a story it was. Truly an unbelievable survival story. I've read about this Shackleton expedition before but this gives another angle on the story. Well worth watching.

I read about Shackleton's expedition many years ago. Having spent 30 years going to sea, and having experienced some pretty terrible conditions, I am still in awe of these individuals. Worsley's feats of navigation in getting the expedition to Elephant Island, as well as the subsequent voyage from Elephant Island to South Georgia stand among the greatest achievements in the history of navigation. As if that weren't enough, the men followed that up by crossing the island of South Georgia on foot, something which no one had ever done before, with nothing but a length of rope and a carpenter's adze. I don't know how they made it, except that they simply knew that failure was not an option. Although the movie centers on Captain Frank Worsley, these were all truly iron men, of a sort whose like we shall never see again. For example, First Mate Frank Wilde deserves a tremendous amount of credit for keeping the shipwrecked survivors on Elephant Island alive for over four months, during which they had no idea whether rescue was ever going to come. And, of course, although the film plays down Shackleton's contributions in favor of Worsley's, it was Shackleton who was the supreme leader, "The Boss", who held everyone together throughout the entire ordeal.

This is one of the most incredible true stories you will ever see. If anyone ever wrote this story as a work of fiction, no publisher would ever accept it because they would consider it too far removed from realm of possibility. However, this all actually happened just the way it is depicted here. They even brought back the pictures to prove it, thanks to the expedition's photographer, Frank Hurley. This film will make Hollywood action-adventure movies seem tame by comparison.