diff --git a/_drafts/2021-09-27-The-Red-Tent.md b/_drafts/2021-09-27-The-Red-Tent.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000000000..53a30eb718c25 --- /dev/null +++ b/_drafts/2021-09-27-The-Red-Tent.md @@ -0,0 +1,8 @@ +--- +published: false +--- +Watched [Amundsen (2019)](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6054846/) on AmazonPrime - good standard biopic with just a bit of confusing flashback timelines. Fun, old-fashioned special effects and fine [Ennio Morricone score](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAjHmGP7kOg). As always, the real-life story (at least according to [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roald_Amundsen)) is much more convoluted, involved, and obsessive. But the interesting part of the wikipedia page is that in list of other media, it mentions [The Red Tent(1969)](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067315/) movie, an Italo-Russian financed picture starring Peter Finch as [Umberto Nobile](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umberto_Nobile) (Italian engineer/explorer) and Sean Connery as Amundsen! Never heard of it, how could I have missed a 2-1/2 hour Connery picture? And yet, lo and behold, available to stream. Nice, old-fashioned, big picture mess of a movie. Finch is dependably stern as Nobile but Connery is really in only 10 minutes of it. It does cover the dirigible crash in the Arctic that caused Amundsen to attempt a search mission, from which he never returned. Mostly plays out in the Arctic as the explorers try to survive and the amateur rescuers make a hash of things. (N.B. the title, though it makes literal sense once you see it, has absolutely no dramatic bearing on the story; and certainly nothing to do with the [story of Jacob's daughter](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3068894/]) ). + + + +Also, FWIW, the 2019 Amundsen biopic shows the bitterness the Norwegian explorer felt after Robert Scott's doomed South Pole expedition somehow turned in to national glory for England. Not a doctor, but I tend to trust the theory that scurvy was Scott's downfall: see [https://idlewords.com/2010/03/scott_and_scurvy.htm](https://idlewords.com/2010/03/scott_and_scurvy.htm), only partially debunked by [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23734365/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23734365/)