Wings Over Everest

A group of British fliers were the first to fly over Mt Everest in the early 1930s. They took movie cameras along in the open cockpits of their biplanes and lovingly recorded every stage of their achievement on film. There's no denying the risks – in those days any mechanical failure meant certain death and they put their lives on the line. Unfortunately, flying in even the most remote locations is now so routine that this journey is of little interest to a modern audience. While every era has its technology freaks, outmoded technology does not capture the interest of new generations and even lovers of history will be quickly bored by this dated production. The only surviving point of interest for this viewer was the way the documentary has captured the unselfconscious racism, sexism and jingoistic nationalism of the era.

The first aerial footage of Everest shown herein (taken from an unpressurized single-engined biplane flown "over the top of the world" in 1933) is fascinating.

Were this trip recreated today one could pretty much count on the plane performing flawlessly and even if there was a technical failure the pilots would have some chance of parachuting out and also of being rescued within a reasonable amount of hours (or have life-saving supplies to protect them dropped until such a rescue could be effected).

This documentary's inherent value is that it shows the risk involved that was ever present in the not so distant past, with regard to travel and exploration. To criticize and dismiss this documentary, as some others have herein, as dated or dull or this that or the other thing (based on attitudes current by some in the 2020s) is unfortunate; for the central point of this documentary is rich, the aspect of risk presented as this exploration of Everest actually happened. And just for that (with no ifs, ands, or buts) it is worthy of watching.

I agree with the previous comments concerning outdated technology and unselfconscious racism. However, I really must mention the classic "stiff upper lip" understatement contained within the final sequence after the aviators' return. "Did you make it" (i.e. the flight over the summit of Everest); "Yes"; "How was it?"; "Alright".

In April of 1934, the Houston-Westland expedition flew over Mount Everest, clearing the peak by a few feet. It was one of those British because-it-was-there things to do, financed by Lady Houston to demonstrate that Britain still had gumption, and executed by a couple of younger aristos who, when asked how it was said "All right." Well, that was clearly worth a young fortune. British Gaumont made a movie about it, and it won an Oscar in 1936 for Best Short Subject (novelty).

The version I looked at was 40 minutes in length, clearly longer than the reported 21-minute version that won, co-directed by Ivor Montagu and Geoffrey Barkas. There are some interesting camera angles and compositions early on, but the narration is flat and uninvolving. It isn't until the fellows are sitting around discussing how they propose to do this thing that it takes on a bit of life, one of those moments when the audience seems to be eavesdropping. After that, it's some incomprehensible technical problems, people going into a tent that seems to be a huge building once you're inside, and the

It had been barely thirty years since the Wright brothers had got a powered aircraft off the ground and now here we are with an intrepid crew of Britons planning to fly over the top of Mount Everest. To achieve this, they will need to sustain an altitude of around 30,000 feet, endure temperatures of -50° and winds of over an hundred miles an hour. They know that if anything goes wrong up there, then they haven't an hope in hell. Using lots of archive of some really quite chilling aerial photography, this nicely edited feature takes us on a trip as they meticulously plan their trip before arriving in northern India and then Nepal to prepare. Meantime, the agrarian population look on in wonder as their kit arrives and takes to the air for practice flights. Their aircraft have open cockpits and they are dependent on oxygen supplies as their goggles ice up and the thinness of the air makes passing out a distinct possibility - these folks are seriously exposed. It's the scenery of the Himalayas that really stands out here. At times what we see doesn't even look real as the peaks emerge from the misty clouds as if they were straight out of a magical Rudyard Kipling tale. It's a story of aviation pioneering that manages to convey some of the excitement and Adrenalin-rush these men enjoyed, and I did quite enjoy it.