|
Nova - Volcano's Deadly Warning | 
| Director: David Belton
Studio: Wgbh Boston
List Price: $19.95
Buy New: $18.95
You Save: $1.00 (5%)
New (1) Used (5) from $2.57
Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 41407
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Ntsc
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: VHS Tape
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 60 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.3 x 4.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 1578079667
UPC: 783421365438
EAN: 9781578079667
ASIN: B00006HB53
Theatrical Release Date: January 18, 2000
Release Date: January 7, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1 to 2 months
| |
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
In 1924 British "gentleman climbers" George Mallory and Andrew Irvine attempted to reach the top of the world's tallest peak, Mount Everest (28 years before the successful expedition of Sir Edmund Hillary). Mallory and Irvine were last spotted 1,000 feet from the summit, at which point they vanished, never to be seen again. Seventy-five years later, a nephew of a member of the 1924 expedition sponsored a search for the bodies of Mallory and Irvine, hoping to prove that they had been the first to conquer Everest. The PBS documentary series Nova was there to record this exciting quest. We follow the searchers as they brave the world's harshest climbing and weather conditions. Their efforts are amply rewarded when they find Mallory's frozen remains, the name tag on his clothing still intact, a moment of discovery that's thrilling to witness. Archival footage of the 1924 expedition provides a fascinating counterpoint as the viewer is struck by how incredibly underdressed and ill prepared the 1920s climbers were compared to today's trekkers, with their high-tech clothing and equipment. Also engrossing is the analysis of the clues surrounding the body, in the attempt to settle the question Did Mallory and Irvine actually attain the summit, or not? --Laura Mirsky
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 The Razors Egde March 18, 2000
M. James (Vancouver, B.C.)
11 out of 13 found this review helpful
In 1924, dressed in little more than tweed climbing gear and possessed of a naive esprit de corp an expedition of English gentlemen adventurers made successive but abortive attempts upon the summit of Mount Everest. The fate of the last pair to attempt this feat, George Leigh Mallory and Andrew Irvine, has remained a mystery for seventy-five years as both ascended into a mist from which they were never seen again. This video captures the first moments of an historic day in 1999 when climbers found the remains of Mallory, perfectly preserved in its trans-alpine resting place. Despite the frequency of its conquest life on Everest is tenuous at best. Curiously, when life is at its most fragile, men of selfless heroism walk the razors edge when the safer path beckons. This video is a fitting requiem to two of Everest's early explorers and chronicles an age when achievements were less a public acclamation of the self than a personal celebration of it.
 LOST AND FOUND...ON EVEREST! December 2, 2000
Lawyeraau (Balmoral Castle)
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
This Nova presentation is a first rate documentary which explores the mystery of the disappearance of Mallory and Irvine, chronicling their 1924 Everest summit attempt and the present day efforts made to find them on Everest. Archival footage of the 1924 Everest British Expedition, along with a montage of vintage photographs of these early gentleman explorers, as well as extracts from personal letters sent by Mallory to his wife, are interposed with modern day footage of Everest in order to frame the story. Commentaries by David Breashears, world class filmmaker and climber, and by various members of the 1999 Mallory and Irvine Research Expedition who discovered the remains of Mallory on Everest, add depth to this documentary which is narrated by Rebecca Mornay.
The efforts of the early Everest expeditioners were truly amazing, considering that they climbed in tweeds and hobnail boots, without fixed ropes, ironmongery, or other sophisticated equipment available to climbers today. A demonstration with a circa 1920s ice axe shows how they would chop steps and hand holds into the ice. It was a terribly painstaking process.
The discovery of Mallory's body on Everest seventy five years after his disappearance into the mists of Everest is truly amazing and wondrously memorialized on this film. The efforts that went into this search were highly organized, with the search area divined through simple cartography based upon anecdotal, second hand information about the sighting on Everest by a Chinese climber, long since deceased, of an "old English dead".
Mallory's marble like body, well preserved and intact, tells of the trauma that he had sustained before his eventual death. A review of the artifacts found with his body, an altimeter marked MEE2 (Mount Everest Expedition 2), personal clothing, a pocket knife, goggles, and personal notes, all add a certain poignancy to the discovery. The burial of Mallory's body on Everest finally puts to rest a chapter in Everest history. Now only Irvine is still left to be accounted for. Perhaps the discovery of his remains will answer the question that is yet to be answered. Did Mallory and /or Irvine summit Everest before their tragic deaths?
Rumble And Toot November 13, 2002
Bruce Crocker (Whittier, California United States)
6 out of 9 found this review helpful
Volcano's Deadly Warning is a near excellent entry in PBS's long-running and usually sterling NOVA series. USGS scientist Bernard Chouet's hypothesis concerning long-period seismic events as a reliable precursor for the prediction of explosive volcanic events is the focal point of the video. Folks who have read Stanley William's book 'Surviving Galeras' and/or Victoria Bruce's book 'No Apparent Danger' should already be familiar with the issues surrounding Chouet's hypothesis. I was worried that the video would take sides in a controversy that has gone beyond basic volcanology, but the video is accurate and even handed. The video follows 1 common scientific thread over a 15 year period [from Nevado Del Ruiz in Colombia to Popocateptl in Mexico] and would be a good video to use for a lesson in scientific thinking. Fans of rivers of red hot basaltic magmas should avoid this video because it focuses on explosive volcanic eruptions and the volcanologists. The one time I had a problem with the video is when it described the eruption at Galeras that killed half a dozen volcanologists. The video does a good job at telling about the conflicting data that the scientists had concerning Galeras and the choices that were made based on then incompletely understood data, but then goes on to say that information was 'disregarded' by the scientists. Despite that one small complaint, I would highly recommend Volcano's Deadly Warning to any earth science teacher or volcano enthusiast.
Did Mallory and Irvine Summit first? December 9, 2000
StevenJM (Pittsburgh, PA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Great video of the search for the remains of Mallory and Irvine in an attempt to discover whether their expedition was a success! The viewer shares in the search and in the emotion of the discovery of Everest's secrets from the Mallory and Irvine expedition. The bits of information on the equipment and dress used by Mallory and Irvine is fascinating. The photos of the original expedition are also great. The graphics diagraming the route used by Mallory to climb Everest are good, too, although I would like to see them shown and discussed further.
We will never know. December 21, 2000
Aires (Fall River, MA United States)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
What a mystery. Did Mallory & Irvin summit before Sir Edmund Hillary in 1953? We will probably never know, so its up to the viewer to come to his or her own conclusion. This video has great information and detailed maps of where clues were left behind. Everest has always been a passion of mine and this video is an important part of my collection as far as the history of the mountain goes.The climbers on this expidition are on a mission to find the bodies of Mallory and Irvin and search a mountain were humans don't belong. I dont think Mallory made the top, but what do you think.......?
|
|
|
Thank you for shopping at the Depot.com online shopping depot.
©2009 Depot.com | |
