The Island at the Top of the World (30th Anniversary Edition)
by Robert Stevenson
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: David Gwillim, David Hartman, Donald Sinden, Jacques Marin, MakoDirector: Robert Stevenson
Brand: Buena Vista Home Video
Cinematographer: Frank V. Phillips
Editor: Robert Stafford
Producer: Winston Hibler
Writer: Ian Cameron
Writer: John Whedon
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); French (Original Language)
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 93 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-09-07
Audience Rating: G (General Audience)
Studio: Walt Disney Video
Product features:
- An American archaeologist (David Hartman) joins a rich English businessman, an eccentric French inventor, and an Eskimo trapper (Mako, PEARL HARBOR), on an awe-inspiring expedition to the Arctic. They're looking for a missing son, but they discover a world forgotten by time -- a world of 10th-century Vikings, erupting volcanoes, and the legendary whales' graveyard! THE ISLAND AT THE TOP OF
Movie Reviews of The Island at the Top of the World (30th Anniversary Edition)
Movie Review: A fantastic flight into the past
Summary: 5 Stars
This has been one of my all-time favorite Disney live-action films for almost 40 years. It's 1907 (two years before Peary reached the North Pole), and Prof. John Ivarsson (David Hartman), an American archaeologist from the University of Minnesota guest-lecturing at the University of Christiania (not to be renamed Oslo for another 18 years), is more or less shanghaied by wealthy British industrialist Sir Anthony Ross (Donald Sinden) to take part in an expedition to the Arctic. Ivarsson is a specialist in the archaeology of the North and has led several successful expeditions to Greenland and other cold regions, and Sir Anthony is seeking information about the fate of his son Donald (David Gwillim), who two years ago revolted against the role for which he was being groomed and shipped aboard a whaler as an ordinary seaman. Eventually word reached his father that he had left the ship at Baffinland and made his way to the trading post of Fort Conger on Ellesmere Island, whence he set off in search of the island described as the "place where the whales go to die." And though Ivarsson claims this is a legend, Sir Anthony has an Eskimo ivory that may provide a clue to where the island is believed to be. Aboard the LTA airship Hyperion, built and captained by Capt. Brieux (Jacques Marin), they fly to Conger, team up with Donald's Eskimo friend and guide Oomiak (Mako), and eventually find their way to a green oasis in the midst of the polar ice, a volcanic island inhabited by a colony of Vikings whose ancestors first settled there 1000 years ago. There, with the help of an old farmer named Erik (Lasse Kolstad) and his daughter Freyja (Agneta Eckemeyr), who took Donald in when he was lost in a great blizzard, they find the young man--but the local high priest (Gunnar Ohlund) denounces them as the vanguard of a force of barbarian invaders poised to conquer the Vikings' private paradise. Now they must escape and make their way to safety through a wilderness of volcanic activity and a bay guarded by killer whales.
This is a modern take on the classic "lost-race" motif so popular before World War II (check out the Tarzan books for examples), full of suspense, action, humor, a richly imagined society, and great special effects--the volcanic scenes are obviously blue-screen work, but the Hyperion's scenes are wonderful. The island, thanks to Ivarsson's comparisons, seems completely plausible, and since we all know that the Vikings were great explorers, what would be more natural than for a band of them to have taken refuge there and preserved their traditional pagan ways? (I personally think it's a great improvement on the original novel Island at the Top of the World: Formerly published as The Lost Ones.) The Viking characters even speak an authentic language (I once went to see the movie with someone who understood it, so I know). There's also a great Maurice Jarre score. Highly recommended.
Summary of The Island at the Top of the World (30th Anniversary Edition)
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