June 25, 2022

Conway Tearle is the stiff-upper lipped commander of a dirigible expedition that sets off on an arduous trip knowing that the wife he leaves behind "Miriam" (Virginia Valli) is in love with one of his colleagues "Tom" (Ricardo Cortez) and wants a divorce! Hardly an happy basis to start such a perilous mission, and when the winds and currents drive them to the frozen Antarctic their goose looks well and truly cooked (or frozen!). Can they survive … read the rest.

Conway Tearle is the stiff-upper lipped commander of a dirigible expedition that sets off on an arduous trip knowing that the wife he leaves behind "Miriam" (Virginia Valli) is in love with one of his colleagues "Tom" (Ricardo Cortez) and wants a divorce! Hardly an happy basis to start such a perilous mission, and when the winds and currents drive them to the frozen Antarctic their goose looks well and truly cooked (or frozen!). Can they survive these hostile climes long enough for rescue planes to arrive? Though there is some aerial photography, the vast majority of this story is relayed to us via his wife listening to updates on the radio, and after a while I found that quite dull. The audio tries far too hard to compensate for the visual wintry conditions - that are clearly studio set-bound, and the stilted acting - especially from a shockingly poor Valli really does spoil the adventure elements that I thought this might include. It's worth remembering that this was made when talkies were in their infancy, so I ought not to be too critical, but there is just too much melodrama and nowhere near enough adventure here and it's just not very good.

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