This week we have added 106,638 new pages to the Archive. We have updated six of our recently added titles, with updates to five of our Irish titles, including additions from the 1970s to the Belfast Telegraph.

Continuing with our in depth exploration of all things cinema this month at the Archive, we take a look at the 1924 film The Epic of Everest, with help from recently added pages to cinema industry publication The Bioscope.

The Epic of Everest is something of a historical first. It captures the ill-fated third British expedition to conquer the summit of the highest mountain in the world, and consequently contains the very earliest footage of the Himalayas. Its format means that it was one of the earliest documentaries, whilst a review in The Bioscope comments that it ‘puts every director of acted films into ‘ignoble obscurity’ with its drama, and even its comedy.’

The Bioscope | 22 January 1925

The Bioscope lends a unique insight into the production of the film. On 21 February 1924 it reports how Pathé will be producing a Mount Everest film around the third expedition to the mountain, and describes how its creator Captain John Noel used a hand-cranked camera to film the expedition.

The third expedition to Everest, however, proved to be a tragic one, with mountaineers George Mallory and Andrew Irvine losing their lives in the process. It is still debated as to whether they reached the summit, and their bodies were not recovered until 75 years after their deaths, on 1 May 1999. However, The Bioscope comments that the explorers’ tragic deaths do not mitigate the impact of the film, rather elevating it, to ‘a tragedy, but a tragedy of the most glorious and inspiring sort.’

The Sphere | 28 June 1924

In a further review, The Epic of Everest is described as having ‘exceptional pictorial merit’ in chronicling the ‘drama of the climb.’ The Bioscope advises its readers that the film ‘should draw large houses for weeks to come.’ And indeed, it proved to be most popular, as the below photograph of crowds waiting outside of the County Theatre in Warwick proves.

The Bioscope | 19 November 1925

UPDATED TITLES

This week we have updated six of our recently added titles.

You can learn more about each of the titles we add to every week by clicking on their names. On each paper’s title page, you can read a FREE sample issue, learn more about our current holdings, and our plans for digitisation.

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You can keep up to date with all the latest additions by visiting the recently added page.  You can even look ahead to see what we’re going to add tomorrow.