This is one of the better-regarded of the Disney studio's live-action efforts, particularly among those made following Walt's death. It's a fantasy adventure on Jules Verne lines; actually, the film coincided with the somewhat similar (and equally good) THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT (1974). We have a handful of people embarking on an expedition to the Arctic via airship in search of the leader (Donald Sinden)'s son the others are David Hartman (young but expert explorer), Jacques Marin (French captain of the vessel) and Mako (the Eskimo who last saw the boy alive). Eventually, half-way through the proceedings to be exact, they find him along with a lost Viking civilization (which speaks in its native tongue) and the location of a fabled whale graveyard!
The film may take a typically juvenile viewpoint, but it's no less engaging for all that of course, we also get humor (including Sinden's traditionally Victorian haughtiness), romance (between his boy and a local lass) and a variety of thrills (the party having to fend themselves against not just standard human villainy but a rather intense attack by killer whales) along the way. The production design of the mythic landscape is attractive (as is the widescreen photography) and, while dated, the special effects (notably the eruption of a volcano and the climactic explosion of the airship it's purely coincidental that I watched this only a day after THE ASSASSINATION BUREAU [1969]; see my review for that film) are quite nicely done.
The film may take a typically juvenile viewpoint, but it's no less engaging for all that of course, we also get humor (including Sinden's traditionally Victorian haughtiness), romance (between his boy and a local lass) and a variety of thrills (the party having to fend themselves against not just standard human villainy but a rather intense attack by killer whales) along the way. The production design of the mythic landscape is attractive (as is the widescreen photography) and, while dated, the special effects (notably the eruption of a volcano and the climactic explosion of the airship it's purely coincidental that I watched this only a day after THE ASSASSINATION BUREAU [1969]; see my review for that film) are quite nicely done.