The Giant of Norway

Giant of Norway, The (1939)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Decent entry in John Nesbitt's Passing Parade series takes a look at the life and career of Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen who would become famous for helping save the lives of thousands of refugees. The documentary tells how Nansen always wanted to see the Arctic but each time he went to go something would happen and he'd rush off to do his real job of saving other people. This isn't the best film I've seen in the series but it does tell an interesting story to say the least. I had never heard of this movie, which is often the case with entries in the series, so that's one reason these works so well today as they offer you bits of history you might not be familiar with. The biggest problem here is that the film is sugar coated way too much and it pushes way to hard to show us what a great man Nansen was. It's obvious what he did yet the film just keeps pushing and pushing for more dramatics. A lot of this could be due to what shape the country was in as WWII was looming.

This episode of John Nesbitt's THE PASSING PARADE tells bit of the story of Fridtjof Nansen. He had first come to notice as an arctic explorer. Later, he had joined the diplomatic service, and became a leading force in helping international refugees in the aftermath of the First World War.

The role of Nansen is acted in dumb show by Lumsden Hare, one of those now-forgotten actors who played elder statesmen and lawyer in the movies in the 1930s. His career was longer than that. He was born in 1875 in Ireland, and was playing Dr. Watson in Sherlock Holmes productions by 1899. He was one of the earlier actors to portray George Bernard Shaw characters on stage. He made his first movie not after the dawn of sound, but in 1916, and his career ended not with the Second World War, but in 1959, five years before his death.

We sometimes forget that actors are adept at many roles, but producers are making a commercial product, and when they thought of Lumsden Hare, they thought of his "brand".