I have just seen this film and reluctantly admire it. I saw it many years ago, but time has mellowed my response to it. John Mills I still think is too much of a star of the time for me to find completely convincing, but no doubt he signalled hope to an immediate post-War public living for the most part in genteel poverty, or confined again to slum buildings. Harold Warrender, a good understated actor, but more subtle, would have been my choice. He stands out in the film as having a quiet sense of presence and less ' heroic, ' and for me he should have been given the role of Scott. His scenes at the beginning of the film with his wife are played with a nuanced tenderness that won me over, and only in his performance do I feel an unspoken presentiment of defeat. But the film, well made and handsome to look at somehow transforms it into the sort of success that the British often attribute to noble failure. Vaughan Williams contributes with a fine musical score and the colour could not be bettered. The ending we should all know by now, and as a child Scott's name was spoken with reverence and he is undoubtedly still a tragic but great figure who failed in his objective, yet is somehow victorious. Both John Gregson and Kenneth More play suitably stiff upper lip roles, and somehow it seems irreverent to give the film a 7. I accept in tragic times it still holds out hope when so little is just over the horizon.
Review of Scott of the Antarctic
