With Byrd to the South Pole

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Movie
German title With Byrd to the South Pole
Original title With Byrd at the South Pole
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1930
length 82 minutes
Rod
production Jesse L. Lasky ,
Adolph Zukor
music Manny Baer
camera Joseph T. Rucker ,
Willard Van der Veer
cut Emanuel Cohen

With Byrd to the South Pole is an American documentary film from 1930. The first Antarctic expedition of the US Rear Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd (1888–1957), which was carried out from 1928 to 1930, is documented. The aim of the expedition was to cross the South Pole with an airplane. November 1929 succeeded.

The two cameramen Joseph T. Rucker and Willard Van der Veer accompanied the expedition and spent the Antarctic winter with Byrd and his men in the Antarctic. In addition to her recordings, the film also contains scenes that co-pilot Harold June recorded during the South Pole flight.

Only some scenes of the black and white film are underlaid with spoken comments, the rest of the film is only accompanied by music.

action

The introduction, commented on by Admiral Byrd, shows the expedition leaving New York . The way to Antarctica is not easy for the ships. Storms have to be overcome, and the pack ice is troubling them too. On Christmas Day, the Ross Ice Shelf , on which the expedition is building the Little America Expedition Base, comes into view .

While the Admiral observes ice formations, the newcomers are also watched by penguins. A plane with Lawrence M. Gould, Harold June and Bernt Balchen on board set off for the Rockefeller Mountains in March 1929 , but was damaged in a snow storm after landing. Byrd leaves with the plane and is able to bring his comrades back to the base.

During the six-month winter night, the men prepare for the flight to the South Pole. As the first daylight illuminates the area in spring, Byrd has the flags of Great Britain and Norway hoisted in honor of the explorers Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott , who reached the South Pole in quick succession in 1911/12. Lawrence Gould goes with a group of men on a sled dog expedition to the Queen Maud Mountains , which is supposed to come to the aid of the South Pole pilots in the event of an emergency landing. The actual polar flight is supposed to be undertaken by pilot Bernt Balchen with the plane named "Floyd Bennett", but the departure has to be postponed by a week due to a snow storm.

The flight can finally be started. Byrd navigates the machine controlled by Balchen to the South Pole. Also on board are radio operator Harold June and aerial photographer Ashley McKinley. The US flag is dropped when it arrives at the South Pole. The dangerous return flight is mastered. When you arrive in Little America , you will be welcomed with great enthusiasm. The return home is being prepared.

production

During the preparations for the expedition, Paramount Pictures acquired Byrd's exclusive film rights for newsreels and a documentary. For Byrd this was a good opportunity to help finance the expensive expedition, but also to get the greatest possible media attention for his expedition.

On board the ship City of New York , Rucker and Van der Veer left the United States with the expedition and, after a stopover in New Zealand, reached Antarctica in December 1928.

Although the cameras had been specially developed for Antarctic conditions, they failed the first time they were used, as various metal components of the cameras expanded to different degrees due to the cold. Rucker and Van der Veer were forced to replace many of the camera parts. One camera was damaged when it was moved from the warmth of the base to the freezing cold and moisture froze inside the camera.

They were able to make a lot of film recordings on the trip to Antarctica and while the Little America research base was being built. These first recordings were sent back with the City of New York waiting for the Antarctic winter in New Zealand. When the ship returned in early 1930 and brought the expedition home, the men could already be shown some finished recordings on board.

Since Rucker and Van der Veer had to finish their documentation in time for the big arrival of the expedition returnees in the United States, they took a faster ship, the whaler Larsen, back to the United States, which they reached several weeks before the rest of the expedition. After Byrd had reached Panama in May 1930 , Rucker and Van der Veer traveled from the United States to work with Byrd on some scenes of the film. In the meantime, the valuable film material brought back from Antarctica, which comprised around 20 miles of film roll, was picked up by plane and hurriedly brought to New York. The long-haul flight, which lasted several days, was unusual enough for the New York Times to report on its progress almost daily.

Commentary on the South Pole flight section was provided by commentator Floyd Gibbons . John Philip Sousa's Stars and Stripes Forever was used for the background music .

According to Eugenes Rodger's book Beyond the Barrier , various scenes in the film are staged or show events of the expedition in a distorted manner. For example a scene in which a man drifts away on an iceberg and has to be rescued. This was done, according to Rodgers, to make the events of the expedition more dramatic for the moviegoers. Many scenes also had to be re-enacted, as the cameramen tried to capture the events directly on film, but the events often took place suddenly or under poor lighting conditions in order to film them.

criticism

The film has received critical acclaim in the United States and Europe. The London daily newspaper The Times , on the other hand, also referred to him as a "sentimental slush". The author Eugene Rodgers calls the film in his book Beyond the Barrier a "melodramatic fairy tale" ("melodramatic fairy tale") due to the sometimes quite simplified representations and over-dramatization of the events.

Awards

At the third Academy Awards , Joseph T. Rucker and Willard Van der Veer were awarded the Oscar for best camera .

publication

The premiere took place on June 19, 1930 in New York. In Germany the film was released in cinemas in the same year.

In February 2000, Image Entertainment released the film on DVD in the United States .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Eugene Rodgers: Beyond the Barrier: The Story of Byrd's first Expedition to Antarctica . 1st edition. United States Naval Institute, Annapolis 1990, ISBN 0-87021-022-X , pp. 23 .
  2. ^ Rockwell Dennis Hunt, Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez: California and Californians . tape 4 . The Lewis Publishing Company, 1932, pp. 125 .
  3. ^ Eugene Rodgers: Beyond the Barrier: The Story of Byrd's first Expedition to Antarctica . 1st edition. United States Naval Institute, Annapolis 1990, ISBN 0-87021-022-X , pp. 243 .
  4. ^ Eugene Rodgers: Beyond the Barrier: The Story of Byrd's first Expedition to Antarctica . 1st edition. United States Naval Institute, Annapolis 1990, ISBN 0-87021-022-X , pp. 244 .
  5. ^ Eugene Rodgers: Beyond the Barrier: The Story of Byrd's first Expedition to Antarctica . 1st edition. United States Naval Institute, Annapolis 1990, ISBN 0-87021-022-X , pp. 249 .
  6. ^ A b c Eugene Rodgers: Beyond the Barrier: The Story of Byrd's first Expedition to Antarctica . 1st edition. United States Naval Institute, Annapolis 1990, ISBN 0-87021-022-X , pp. 261 .
  7. ↑ Lisle Abbott Rose: Explorer: The Life of Richard E. Byrd . University of Missouri Press, Columbia MI 2008, ISBN 0-8262-1782-6 , pp. 250 .
  8. ^ With Byrd at the South Pole . Image entertainment; Retrieved January 6, 2011.