James Robertson Justice was so keen to play P.O. Evans he even shaved off his beard for his first scene.

Ralph Vaughan Williams later transformed the score into his seventh symphony, the "Sinfonia Antartica."

Additional dialog was provided by Mary Hayley Bell, the wife of John Mills.

Captain Scott's log and many of the personal effects of the explorers were loaned by The British Museum to add to the authenticity of this near-documentary.

Chosen as the Royal Command Performance film of 1948.



Much of the Antarctic scenes were shot on location in Norway.

The hut where Scott and his party stay throughout the winter months before their final push to the South Pole still exists today and is a tourist attraction for those few who travel down to that part of the world. The intensely cold, dry air has preserved everything almost exactly as it was a century ago.

The music Wilson listens to in the mid-Polar night is Dame Clara Butt's 1910 recording of the hymn "Abide With Me".

The scene where the explorers land at the Bay of Ross was specially extended in the cutting room merely to accommodate the power of Vaughan Williams' score for the sequence.

The temperatures recorded by Scott and his team on their ill-fated expedition remain to this day some of the lowest ever recorded.

Vaughan Williams wrote nearly 1000 bars of music for the film, much of it before filming had even started. In the event, less than half of what he wrote was actually used.

With the death of Barry Letts (Apsley Cherry-Garrard), Christopher Lee is the film's last surviving cast member.


GourmetGiftBaskets.com