Curiosidades

The film takes part of its inspiration from contemporary affairs surrounding the competing claims of Robert E. Peary and Frederick Cook over who had first reached the North Pole. Peary claimed he had reached the North Pole on 6 April 1909, however Cook, claimed he had done so a year earlier, on 21 April 1908. Méliès is quoted as saying that he thought both had pretended to have reached the North Pole, so he decided he was going to go there.

The snow giant that eats some of the crew is based on an entity that would later come to be referred to as the Abominable Snowman in western popular culture. The names Yeti and Meh-The are commonly used by the people indigenous to the region, and are part of their folk beliefs. Stories of the Yeti first emerged as a facet of Western popular culture in the 19th century, but legends near polar regions are much older. In Russian folklore, for example, the creature is called the Chuchuna and is said to dwell in Siberia. It has been described as six to seven feet tall and covered with dark hair. According to the native accounts from the nomadic Yakut and Tungus tribes, it is a well built, Neanderthal-like man wearing pelts and bearing a white patch of fur on its forearms. It is said to occasionally consume human flesh, which may be why this film depicts the creature as capturing and eating crewmen. The name Abominable Snowman was coined in 1921, two years after this film's release, when Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Howard-Bury led the 1921 British Mount Everest reconnaissance expedition and discovered the now iconic, mysterious tracks in the snow. This discovery eventually led to several films in the 1950s depicting the Abominable Snowman, starting with United Artist's "The Snow Creature" (1954), Toho's "Half Human" (1955), Jerry Warren's "Man Beast," (1956) and Hammer's "The Abominable Snowman" (1957). "Conquest of the Pole" was released before those large tracks discovered by Howard-Bury were part of the western folklore surrounding this cryptid; nevertheless, a case could be made that it is truly the first film to feature the Yeti.

This is Méliès' longest-running surviving film.

Included in the "Georges Melies: First Wizard of Cinema (1896-1913)" DVD collection, released by Flicker Alley.