''Wings over Everest'' is a 1934 British short

documentary film A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

directed by Geoffrey Barkas and Ivor Montagu. It won an

Academy Award The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence ...

1936 Events January–February * January 20 – The Prince of Wales succeeds to the throne of the United Kingdom as King Edward VIII, following the death of his father, George V, at Sandringham House. * January 28 – Death and state funer ...

for Best Short Subject (Novelty). It described the 1933 Houston-Mount Everest flight expedition, in which Douglas Douglas-Hamilton, 14th Duke of Hamilton, otherwise known as Lord Clydesdale, piloted a single-engined biplane on 3 April 1933, just clearing

Everest Mount Everest (), known locally as Sagarmatha in Nepal and Qomolangma in Tibet, is Earth's highest mountain above sea level. It lies in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas and marks part of the China–Nepal border at its ...

's southern peak by a few feet, having been caught in a powerful downdraught. The film used mixture of real footage of Everest from the record-breaking flight and theatrically produced scenes using the actual people rather than actors. The flight used two aircraft that took off from Purnea, India on 3 April 1933. One aircraft was Westland PV-3 which had undergone some additional changes, and the other aircraft was a Westland PV-6. Lord Clydesdale flew the PV-3 and Lieutenant David McIntyre in the PV-6. The aircraft were not pressurized but they did use bottled oxygen. As mentioned, the film about this flight won an Oscar in the United States in 1936, in addition, aerial photos would go onto be used by mountaineers including Tenzing and Hillary's expedition which reached the summit on foot. The aerial photos were made on a second flight on 19 April 1933 as during the first flight there was a dusty haze that obscured the photographs from the 3 April flight. ''Wings over Everest'' was preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2014, in partnership with the UCLA Film and Television Archive.

References

External links

''New York Times: Wings Over Everest''
* {{Mount Everest 1934 films 1934 short documentary films British short documentary films British black-and-white films Black-and-white documentary films Documentary films about aviation Films about Mount Everest Live Action Short Film Academy Award winners Films directed by Geoffrey Barkas 1930s English-language films 1930s British films Films scored by Hubert Bath English-language short documentary films

See also

References

External links