Tom Crean

The story of the 1914-1916 Antarctic exploration mission of Sir Ernest Shackleton.

Herbert Ponting travelled to Antarctica with Captain Scott’s ill-fated South Pole expedition and filmed the stunning images that make up this extraordinary documentary. (Originally released in 1912 as With Captain Scott in the Antarctic, the material was re-edited and re-issued by Ponting in 1924 as The Great White Silence.)

This is a documentary of Captain R.F. Scott's second Antarctic expedition, begun in 1910. The British, under Scott, attempted to reach the South Pole before Roald Amundsen's Norwegians. Scott's writings reveal that the British made it to the South Pole, only to find that the Norwegians had gotten there first. Scott, and the other four men who had made it to the Pole with him, died on the return trip.

Shackleton and Scott were men with a common goal - the South Pole. However, divisions between them grew as jealousy and intrigue intensified their rivalry. This intriguing documentary draws upon a collection of historical knowledge to investigate the social setting and psychology of these men who dramatically, and fatally, pushed the limits of human endurance.

The Irishman Tomás Ó Cuirín (1877-1938), known as Tom Crean, was one of the greatest heroes in the history of Antarctic exploration: he participated in three of the greatest expeditions, shared adventures with Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Henry Shackleton, the great rivals of the time, and survived them both. However, today he is a practically forgotten figure.