LOST IN ARCTIC

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 424, 4 August 1928, Page 25

LOST IN ARCTIC

FILM PROMOTERS’ SEARCH FOR NOVELTIES IMPORTANT PURCHASE Screen promoters are always anxious to find something novel for their patrons. The fact that these pictures are invariably produced independently, and often without any encouragement, has made no difference provided they have selling possibilities. News arrived last mail of a sensational picture which has been bought from its maker by the Fox Film Corporation. “Lost in the Arctic” is the title. It was made in 1925 by H. A. Snow j (now deceased) and Sidney Snow, who several years ago made the picture, “Big Game Hunting in Africa.” The latter was the first of the actual j nature films which since became popular. Heroic Undertaking Since that time the film has been patiently gone over and edited by the son. The father’s illness delayed the preparing and marketing of the product of their perilous expedition. A footage of 60,000 ft has been cut to a programme length of B,oooft at the Fox Studio, which will release “Lost in the Arctic” before long in New York.

The film is the story of an expedition that set out to discover, if possible, the remains of the Stefansson party that was lost in 1913. Snow and his son figured that the men who were lost on the Polar drifts probably would head for the only solid land in the vicinity, Herald Island, at the edge of the Polar ice pack. As this is an inaccessible spot nine years out of ten, due to the Polar pack that keeps vessels away and which breaks up only in the tenth year, the Snows' effort was a heroic undertaking. The film shows their ship setting out for the North, and is a pictorial log of the voyage, including most thrilling shots of animal life and hunting in the Polar regions. A whale hunt, shot from the small boat as it was dragged at the end of a rope from the harpooned and frenzied whale, is one realistic thrill. The chase spins the tiny boat pell-mell through a school of whales, any one of which could have crushed the boat with a whack of its tail. Explorers Found

There are times when the fleeing whale almost whacks the camera with the wild flips of its tail. The blowing of the school of whales when the mammals of the deep are first sighted is an impressive film shot.

A Polar bear leaping and swimming and running at breakneck speed over the ice cakes and through the water is a revelation of how- agile such an enormous creature may be.