The Conquest of Everest

When Edmond Hillary and Tensing Norkay Conquered Everest as a Coronation present for Queen Elizabeth, they gave the rest of the world an added gift in the form of a dramatic and well-organized Technicolor documentary."

"The Conquest of Everest" reveals the same careful planning that spelled success for the fourth major assault on the world's highest peak. The fill in shots which space out the more exciting, on-the-spot scenes in this feature-length presentation are well filmed and valuable in detailing the long, work that went into the ascent.

It is disappointing, however, to sweat one's way with the mountaineers up the ice-cliffs and along the ridges of the upper camp, and then not see the final moment of triumph at the very top. Although Hollywood would never have committee this scene, T. R. Stobart, the expedition's capable cameraman-mountaineer, could scarcely be expected to pack his equipment to the pinnacle and film the others as they arrived.

He has, instead, depicted the grueling labor that goes into ice and snow climbing, creating a lasting tribute to the great heart and courage of the British climbers and their Sherpa porters. In shots of Hunt's agonized breathing without bottled oxygen at 28,000 feet, and in long, expansive views of the incredible faced of the giant mountain he has quitely conveyed the vastness of their undertaking.

The narration and music, however, veer sharply from Stobart's camera technique. Meredith Edwards, in voicing the sometimes Biblical-sounding narration, rolls his R's with as much power as the occasional avalanches. The original underscoring, while appropriately Himalayan and amusing at times, disgorges climax after climax during some of the climbing episodes. Your soon come to imagine the crest of Everest in every frequent shot of a minor crag.

These are minor criticisms, however, of what may well prove the best, and certainly the highest, mountaineering documentary every filmed.

Rounding out the bill at the Exeter is a shorter, land-locked version of "The Sea Around Us," in which Mother Earth gets her dues. This Technicolor Canadian entry in the "back-to-nature" filmathon holds your gaze with fascinating shots of microscopic earth organisms and slow motion pictures of plants springing suddenly to full growth.