Released by Kodak as part of its Kodascope Library in the 1920s, this short version of the famed silent film “The Epic of Everest” documents the Mallory and Irvine Mount Everest expedition. The movie was made in brutally harsh conditions by Captain John Noel, who financed it himself and shot it with a hand-cranked movie camera. The film contains some of the earliest filmed records of life in Tibet and features sequences at Phari Dzong (Pagri), Shekar Dzong (Xegar) and Rongbuk monastery. Noel, who had tried but failed to get to Everest through Tibet in 1913, released a long version of this documentary as The Epic of Everest in 1924 and lectured extensively around the world with it.
Filmmaker Captain John Noel was the official photographer on the 1924 British Expedition to Mount Everest. That expedition became legendary in part due to the tragic loss of mountaineers George Mallory and Andrew Irvine, and the film ends with images of the monument erected to both climbers.
John Baptist Lucius Noel (26 February 1890 – 12 March 1989) was an English mountaineer and filmmaker best known for his film of the 1924 Mount Everest expedition. Noel was commissioned into the East Yorkshire Regiment in 1909 and posted to India. Noel’s regiment spent summers near the Himalayas and in 1913 he travelled in disguise into Tibet in order to approach Mount Everest. After serving in Europe during the First World War, in 1919 he lectured about his travels near Everest to the Royal Geographical Society. Sir Francis Younghusband used the occasion to call for the ascent of Mount Everest in 1921. Noel eventually became a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (FRGS). He joined the 1922 Everest expedition as its official photographer and filmmaker and produced a short film, Climbing Mount Everest (1922).
In 1924, Noel formed a private company which paid for the photographic rights of that year’s Everest expedition. Noel reached the North Col and used a specially adapted camera to film the ascent of the peak. A note from George Mallory to Noel was the last contact with the lost explorer before his body was discovered in 1999. The disappearance of George Mallory and Andrew Irvine added drama to the film, The Epic of Everest (1924), but it was not a commercial success.
Noel brought to London a group of Tibetan monks which performed before screenings of the film; the performances of the “dancing lamas” offended Tibetan religious sensibilities and caused a breakdown in diplomatic relations between Britain and Tibet which became known as the “Affair of the Dancing Lamas” and which lasted nearly ten years. Noel lectured widely in North America and published a book about his adventures, Through Tibet to Everest (1927). After the first ascent of Everest in 1953, Noel lectured once again about the mountain and his footage and photographs appeared widely in many films and television programs
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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
