The Secret Land (1948)

(On Cable TV, October 2022) You would think that a government-sponsored late-1940s documentary on Antarctic exploration would be hopelessly outdated, and you wouldn’t be wrong—but you wouldn’t be capturing the value of The Secret Land either. There is some incredible enduring value in capturing the state of the art (especially in colour) and being able to revisit it. There is some built-in excitement to the topic of the documentary—conditions in the Antarctic remain just as challenging as they were seventy years ago even if the technology has improved. It’s rather interesting to hear Hollywood notables such as Robert Montgomery, Robert Taylor and Van Heflin lend their voices to the narration. Much of the footage is quite interesting, and the film does get its best material not in explaining the US military effort, but by focusing on smaller slice-of-life (or work) moments. The more you focus on The Secret Land as a presentation of a specific military mission, the less satisfying the film gets: it’s far better seen as a grab-bag of all things Antarctic by the late 1940s, as experienced by military personnel.