The true story of Ernest Shackleton's 1914 Endurance expedition to the the South Pole and his epic struggle to lead his crew to safety after his ship was crushed in the pack ice.
A four-part drama adaptation about the life of polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton. Based on Shackleton’s own journals. In 1914 Ernest Shackleton chooses to lead a team on their famous journey aboard the Endurance. When the ship is trapped and crushed by pack-ice, Shackleton and five of his men embark on a desperate 800-mile journey from Elephant Island to South Georgia.
The Last Place on Earth is a 1985 Central Television seven part serial, written by Trevor Griffiths based on the book Scott and Amundsen by Roland Huntford. The book is an exploration of the expeditions of Captain Robert F. Scott and his Norwegian rival in polar exploration, Roald Amundsen in their attempts to reach the South Pole.
The series ran for seven episodes and starred a wide range of UK and Norwegian character actors as well as featuring some famous names, such as Max von Sydow, Richard Wilson, Sylvester McCoy and Pat Roach. It also featured performances early in their careers by Bill Nighy and Hugh Grant.
Subsequently Huntford's book was republished under the same name. The book put forth the point of view that Amundsen's success in reaching the South Pole was abetted by much superior planning, whereas errors by Scott ultimately resulted in the death of him and his companions.
In 1989, the German polar explorer Arved Fuchs and the South Tyrolean mountaineer Reinhold Messner set out together to reach the South Pole on skis without sled dogs or motor technology and then cross the entire Antarctic. There are problems right from the start because the onward transport to the starting point by plane cannot be carried out on time. Finally, the adventurers set off from Patriot Hills Base Camp on the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf to the Pole. The completely different character traits of the two men quickly emerge. Messner is impetuous and pushes for speed. The calm Fuchs divides his strength and consistently follows his pace during all planned breaks. On New Year's Eve 1989, the two men are warmly welcomed by the crew of the US Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. But the much larger and more dangerous part of their adventurous continental crossing still lies ahead of them. The 3-part documentary shows one of the last great adventures of modern times in impressive pictures.