The Land Unknown
- PASSED
- Year:
- 1957
- 78 min
- 87 Views
Your goal, gentlemen, Antarctica.
Five million square miles of terra incognita,
But your job, to make it
just a little less incognita,
Amundsen discovered
the South Pole in 1911.
Wilkins explored the coast in 1928.
And Admiral Byrd flew
over the South Pole in 1929
and once again in 1947.
Now, gentlemen, it's your turn.
As officers of this great enterprise,
you will facilitate our navy's
geographical and meteorological
mapping operations.
You will also investigate
the phenomenon encountered
by the Byrd expedition of 1947,
of a body of warm water completely
surrounded by this vast desert of ice.
Now, at the time, this discovery
astounded the entire scientific world,
caused a great deal of speculation.
Now, there are other phenomena
that you will investigate.
Ellsworth discovered
fossil remains of ferns and petrified logs.
Amundsen discovered veins of coal
100 miles long.
There have been reports of iron,
copper and nickel.
Now, there may be deposits of uranium
under these vast polar ice fields.
Now, in addition, you may find that...
Gentlemen, this way is south.
Thank you.
Now in just a few moments,
we'll show you excerpts from a film
made by the Byrd expedition
which'll give you firsthand information
on many of the problems
which you are apt to encounter.
But first, we'll take a short break.
Not bad.
She's got a head
on her shoulders, too.
Oh, you know her?
Margaret Hathaway, Oceanic Press.
How do you do, Miss Hathaway?
Hello, Captain. I'm sorry I'm late.
That's quite all right.
I was thinking perhaps the OP had decided
not to send you after all.
Oh, no.
Of course you're aware
of the dangers of this trip?
I am. I've read a great deal about Antarctica.
I wasn't thinking of Antarctica exactly.
I was thinking more
of your being alone with 800 men.
I've read a great deal about men, too.
Don't forget,
once I was alone with half a million of them
In that case, Miss Hathaway,
I think you've had excellent basic training.
Now, would you care to meet
some of the men you'll be working with?
I always love to meet men, Captain.
Miss Margaret Hathaway,
may I present Commander Roberts,
with whom you'll be spending
most of your time?
I've heard about you, Commander.
How do you do?
I can do better than that.
I'm an ardent reader of your column.
How do you do?
This is Lieutenant Jack Carmen.
He'll be your helicopter pilot.
Hello, Lieutenant.
Hi.
I hope you won't mind having to fly
the first woman over Antarctica.
Ma'am, you just say the word,
and I'll fly you up to the moon.
In a helicopter?
You won't have to worry about him,
Miss Hathaway.
I'm sure he'll cool off
as soon as he hits sub-zero weather.
Pardon me.
The film's ready, sir.
Thank you.
You'll excuse me.
Will you join us?
Thank you.
So you're a geophysicist, Commander?
That's right.
But you don't look like a scientist to me.
You don't look like Walter Winchell.
Give me time.
CAPTAlN:
Will you take your seats, please?In 1947, the use of Huskies as draft animals
was still very much
a part of any operation in the Antarctic.
And here we see some scenes of the careful
training that both men and dogs underwent
in the months prior to embarkation.
Finally, the ships are loaded,
Admiral Byrd boards his flagship,
and the expedition is on its way.
Its main goal is the Bay of Whales
in the Ross Sea.
But 800 miles of the Ross lce Barrier
had to be penetrated.
But finally, in the winter of '47,
which is just the beginning of summer
in the Antarctic, the expedition arrives.
It finds the first Little America intact.
And its foodstuffs, bread
and other perishables remain unharmed
in nature's great deep freeze.
Now, at the edge of the Ross lce Barrier
some 800 miles away
from Admiral Byrd's base camp,
huge transport aircraft for the first time
are launched from an aircraft carrier
and land in Little America.
Now, their mission,
the greatest aerial exploration
and mapping program of Antarctica
ever undertaken.
Now, here you see
of Antarctica's ice-free warm water region,
first discovered
by the Byrd expedition in '47
and which will be thoroughly investigated
by a member of our own group...
How soon do we leave?
...Commander Alan Roberts.
In two months.
December 15th, we leave from Norfolk.
CAPTAlN:
He will leadan expedition into this region.
It's overwhelming.
This tremendous force
chewing up the ice.
Diesel oil.
What?
I was saying, this overwhelming force
is caused by the sudden expansion
of compressed oil vapor.
Oh, Alan!
Oil vapors, molecules.
Do you have to be so technical?
A few things I can be quite romantic about.
Name one.
Well, women.
Oh.
For example, although I know
basically women consist mostly of water,
with a few pinches of salt, metals thrown in,
you have a very unsaltlike
and nonmetallic effect on me.
I give in.
Let's talk about diesel engines, shall we?
Sorry for the rough treatment.
We'll have to put up with it for a while.
We've just entered the Ross lce Pack.
Thanks.
The heaviest since Sir James Clark
forced his way through it in 1841.
It's going to hold us back
more than we anticipated.
We've got about 700 miles
of the stuff to plow through.
It'll put us
about two weeks behind schedule.
And how will that affect my program,
Captain Burnham?
Well, we've got four weeks
of precious daylight.
I'll have to ask you to take longer flights
than I would permit
under ordinary circumstances.
You'll commence operations as soon
as we reach open water,
which will be just about there.
The weather reports are satisfactory.
The sooner you get going, the better.
Are you ready, Lieutenant?
I think so, sir.
Steve?
Ship's all checked out, sir.
Engine's heated.
Provisions? Survival kits?
Yes, sir.
Fine. How about you, Commander?
All my gear's aboard, sir.
Good.
Miss Hathaway, you understand
that if anything should happen out there,
your chances for survival are limited?
I'm going.
All right, then. Good luck.
Thank you.
Happy landings.
Thank you, sir.
Look at those two.
Man and wife?
Nope. Both males.
Wanna say hello to them?
Maybe you can get an interview.
Looks like they're all wearing tuxedos.
Nope. All female.
40 below zero.
It's hard to believe that millions of years ago
this region was subtropical.
In those days, on an excursion like this,
you would have worn a bathing suit.
Born too late, I always say.
Unless Mount Erebus erupts again.
If she did,
there'd be a lot of melted snow down there.
The latest weather report, sir.
Contact Lieutenant Carmen.
The helicopter
is to return at once.
Yes, sir.
There's a storm moving in between here
and the warm water region.
I hope we can catch them before they land.
We're getting closer.
Right beyond this range.
There it is!
Well, now I believe it,
but there's still the big question.
Translation
Translate and read this script in other languages:
Select another language:
- - Select -
- 简体中文 (Chinese - Simplified)
- 繁體中文 (Chinese - Traditional)
- Español (Spanish)
- Esperanto (Esperanto)
- 日本語 (Japanese)
- Português (Portuguese)
- Deutsch (German)
- العربية (Arabic)
- Français (French)
- Русский (Russian)
- ಕನ್ನಡ (Kannada)
- 한국어 (Korean)
- עברית (Hebrew)
- Gaeilge (Irish)
- Українська (Ukrainian)
- اردو (Urdu)
- Magyar (Hungarian)
- मानक हिन्दी (Hindi)
- Indonesia (Indonesian)
- Italiano (Italian)
- தமிழ் (Tamil)
- Türkçe (Turkish)
- తెలుగు (Telugu)
- ภาษาไทย (Thai)
- Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
- Čeština (Czech)
- Polski (Polish)
- Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
- Românește (Romanian)
- Nederlands (Dutch)
- Ελληνικά (Greek)
- Latinum (Latin)
- Svenska (Swedish)
- Dansk (Danish)
- Suomi (Finnish)
- فارسی (Persian)
- ייִדיש (Yiddish)
- հայերեն (Armenian)
- Norsk (Norwegian)
- English (English)
Citation
Use the citation below to add this screenplay to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"The Land Unknown" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 1 Nov. 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/the_land_unknown_12208>.
Discuss this script with the community:
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In