Although released some 71 years ago in black and white, The Secret Land is a living visual documentary testament of the fortitude of the 4,700 men of the United States Navy, Air Force and Army. This film is delivered under the pretense that the United States was interested in exploring the vastness of the sub zero temperature of Antarctica to map out the land for its minerals and oils and was led by Admiral Byrd's post World War II expedition to Antarctica.This film is just so interesting from so many perspectives. First, Admiral Byrd was responsible for leading more than a dozen ships, even more planes and helicopters, as well a submarine was also deployed. Unfortunately the submarine was unable to make it through the deep thick glacier ice and the film shows us their audience where it got stuck and how the men pulled it out before it sunk with the 300 men aboard and turn around for safer open water. Secondly the planning of this expedition was completed in about three (3) quick months, and if the over 4,000 men was not significant enough, the huge amount of food, visual and technical equipment, husky dogs, sleds, and tents just added to the expanse of the filming in the Antarctica.I am a believer in conspiracy theories, and since this documentary type film was made shortly after the end of world War 2, I for one am going to assume that the U.S. Navy, Air Force and Army quickly deployed a fleet of ships, planes and a submarine as well to the Antarctica to counter what other large and competitive foreign countries such as Russia, Germany and maybe even China had already deployed in the Antarctica. Regardless of the real reasons the United States made this film, it is a sight to see if for nothing else but to see these hardy men stepping out on to the plains of the Antarctica with what today would be considered antiques and survive in sub 30 degree weather, day in and day out.I have watched this film twice now and I am sure to watch it again as it is very impressive both for the cinematography of the cold and vast Antarctica, but also for its historical value of the men and their equipment that they used some 70 years ago. I give this excellent film a 9 out of 10 rating.

Back in the day when documentary film making was more than some obnoxious twit sticking a video camera in front of celebrities and then editing the content for a political agenda, MGM contributed this classic about Admiral Byrd's post World War II expedition to Antarctica. The film was narrated by three WWII veterans with MGM, Robert Montgomery, Van Heflin, and Robert Taylor.The men here are assigned some of the most hazardous peace time duty the United States Navy ever had to perform. The polar regions are some of the most forbidding area on our globe. The film captures some real dangers the Navy faced. We see a submarine caught in a frozen ice flow, a rescue of a man being transferred from ship to ship via breecher's buoy when the line snaps and he's tossed into the frozen sea, a crash of one of the planes. This film captures all the hazards of the expedition and the forbidding beauty of Antarctica.From his transatlantic flights and his early polar expeditions Admiral Richard E. Byrd was a genuine American hero. We probably know more about the geography of the polar regions due to his work than any other individual. After this expedition, Byrd in fact did return to the South Pole as late as two years before he died in 1957.When TCM broadcasts this, catch it by all means. This is what reality TV is all about.

In the summer of 1946 Secretary of the Navy James V. Forrestal approved the largest naval task force, 13 ships and 4,700 men, since the end of the Second World War to sail from Norfolk Virginia to the cold and ice capped seas of the Antarctic to map that unknown and frozen continent as well as monitor the vast and untapped natural resources hidden under it's frozen surface.The film "The Secret Land" is a documentary narrated by actors Robert Montgomery Robert Taylor and Van Haflin about that fabled expedition call Operation Highjump and the men who were on it. Who suffered through it's deadly cold winds ice flows and the dreaded coming of the Antarctic winter that may well have spelled doom to all of those sailors and merchant marines on that perilous expedition. Led by Admiral Richard E. Byrd and Rear Admiral Richard H. Cruzen Operation Highjump did what it set out to do, by mapping some 1.3 million square miles of the unknown Antarctic continent. There also was a number casualties among the ships and men on that voyage. The most noted was the USS Sennet a submarine that was crushed in the ice off the US base Little America. Leaving from the US port in Norfolk to the southern most part of the Pacific Ocean to Scotts Island and Little America on the Antarctic land mass. Aircraft carrier USS Philipine Sea the flag ship of task force 63, Operation Highjump, had on it's deck six giant RD4 supply planes who, with Admiral Byrd aboard, flew over the frozen wastes of that continent and photograph it. In the end the expedition was considered to be a major success but over the years it has all but been forgotten by the American public but It's good to see that the movie "The Secret Land" is still around and is being broadcast periodically on TCM to rekindle interest in that major post WWII event. Even though Operation Highjump was conducted over fifty years ago many of the photographs and documents on that expedition are still classified and there's the strange explanation of Admiral Byrd's missing three hours, when he flew over the South Pole in February 1947. Having the American public told that Byrd's RD4 had to jettison most of it's equipment to avoid losing altitude and slamming into the dangerously high Antarctic mountain ranges, that in some places are as high as 20,000 feet, that had communications cut off between him and the US base on frozen Antarctic coast. That explanation didn't wash with a lot of the people who listened to the Admirals radio broadcast as he flew over the pole. The broadcast by Admiral Byrd suddenly went dead for a number of minutes and there are those who think that it was done on purpose, by the US Navy, to keep the American public from knowing just what he saw there. There was one fantastic discovery by the Byrd task force that didn't escape the attention of the American media and public as well as the lens of the movie camera. That was the discovery, off the Shacklenton Ice Shelf in Wilkes land, of a place later named the Bunger Oasis. Flying over the ice and snow US Navy Let. Commander David E. Bunger spotted filmed and landed on this 300 square mile patch of land with tricolor fresh water lakes that were totally ice-free right in the middle of the blistering cold and freezing Antarctic! The lakes in the Bunger Oasis were the colors, red blue & green, of the vast amount of colored algae in them and even now, over a half century after the Bunger Oasis' discovery, nothing in the world of science has been able to explain it.

This is the story of a massive trip to Antarctica. If you thought your spouse brings too much on vacation, it ain't nothing compared to what the military brought to the bottom of the world after the second world war ended. This was a huge operation and this is its story. Never mind that this is educational and award winning, its simply a great story told expertly.I had run across this film by accident years ago on one of the Turner stations and was captivated. I fell into its tale of men over coming nature and its become a favorite of mine ever since.Granted its "America can do" attitude can make you a bit crazy, but it was that sort of attitude that allowed us to think we could do it in the first place.See it, not because you'll learn something, see it because you will be entertained better than most dramatic films entertain you.10 out of 10.