American Experience, The: The Greely Expedition (2011)
*** 1/2 (out of 4)
Another very good entry in The American Experience series. This one takes a look at the 1881 expedition of twenty-six men led by Adolphus Greely as they would travel to the North and enter certain areas of Greeland. They were suppose to be there a year when a supply ship would return but it ended up sinking and the men were left stranded for a second winter when they decided to try and reach safety themselves. This here would lead to another horrific fate and before their eventual rescue only six men would survive and their return home would just lead to more horrors. I'm not sure how many new facts this film has but for someone who knew very little about the actual events I thought this thing did a very good job at giving the major details of what happened and even more shocking is how the Government would eventually turn their backs on the men and the media outcry is the only reason they would eventually be rescued. Even more shocking was to see how these survivors were treated once they did get back home. There's no question that the story itself is quite gripping as men started dying from a variety of issues including starvation and hypothermia. Another major issue when the men returned was their apparent cannibalism. THE GREELY EXPEDITION features many terrific photos of some of the men involved and I thought Tim Hopper did a terrific job with the voice of Greely and Michael Murphy was exceptionally good as the narrator. If you've unfamiliar with the story then this is a must see and one has to wonder why no one has tried turning it into a feature movie.
