Product Details

• Actors: Leo Dickinson
• Directors: Leo Dickinson
• Format: Color, Restored, NTSC
• Number of tapes: 1
• VHS Release Date: April 15, 2000
• Run Time: 52 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• ASIN: 0970816936
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #400,133 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

About the Actor

Leo Dickinson is a pioneer film maker of extreme sports in a class of his own. Described by the American Alpine Journal as ".... unquestionably the world's leading adventure film-maker." Leo Dickinson is probably the most highly acclaimed adventure sports cinematographer of our time, if not the most intrepid!

For three decades now, Leo has been at the forefront of extreme adventure sports, travelling the world to capture adventures on film as they happened. He has made over 50 films of his own and has helped in many others. His films have been shown all over the world and have won major awards in every mountain and adventure film festival world wide.

If his name is not immediately familiar, it's probably because he instinctively eschews publicity for himself. Whether mountaineering, ballooning, skydiving, kayaking or cave diving, Leo has traveled the world to record many historic 'firsts'. He has filmed Messner's first ascent of Everest without oxygen; canoed down the raging torrent of the world's highest river, the Dudh Kosi; hauled a sledge across the desolate Patagonian ice-cap; acted as ballast in Julian Nott's successful attempt to break the balloon altitude record; floated over the Sahara dangling from a cushion of hot air. He has also taken part in hundreds of highly intricate formation freefall sky-dives.

Climbing was Leo's first adventure sport. In 1966, as a teenager, he ventured on his first alpine climbing trip in the Dolomites, climbing with Layton Kor, among others. Shortly after graduating from art school in 1968, where Leo distinguished himself as a prize winning photographer, he decided that there would be more scope for his artistic and creative talents in movies.

Not short on ambition or confidence, he decided that his first film would be nothing less than a first hand view of climbing the North Face of the Eiger. With infectious optimism and in spite of his lack of experience, he managed to persuade Yorkshire Television to back him. In 1970, where other cameramen failed, he succeeded with a team of three other climbers in scaling the Eiger's vicious North Face in appalling conditions. Leo brought back the first ever film of this notoriously dangerous climb. He made history with his debut film and went on to win over 30 major international film awards thereafter.

Leo later branched out into other adventure sports - from sky diving in thin air to cave diving in deep waters. His head for heights was to prove a useful asset. In situations that look insanely dangerous to most people - dangling from balloons or helicopters, or strung in a Tyrolean traverse across a precipitous gorge above treacherous white water - he has the amazing ability to calmly carry on filming in what he likes to call "completely controlled circumstances."

Over the years, the world's leading adventurers have sought him out for his special talent. Leo's special talent lies not only in his expert skills in cameramanship and in his creativity and ingenuity in where to put his cameras. And you mustn't forget that Leo is as much an adventurer as he is a film maker. Leo has an intuitive alertness to those moments of unexpected poignancy that so characterizes adventure documentaries. Like a master story teller, Leo also has that rare talent of being able to communicate to the audience in subtle ways the spirit that moves behind the physical and mental ordeals undertaken by those who test themselves to the limit in the remotest places on earth. This is probably what distinguishes Leo's films from other action films.

Product Description

First Ascent of Everest without supplemental oxygen by Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler in 1978. This is the actual expedition documentary filmed by highly acclaimed adventure filmmaker Leo Dickinson. Winner of "Best Expedition Film" at both the Banff Film Festival and Telluride Mountain Films at the time. This film documents a milestone, an illustrious chapter in the history of mountaineering. It also has some rare historical footage of the early Everest expeditions: the tragic Mallory expedition, the pioneering Shipton expedition and the successful first ascent expedition by Edmund Hilary.

For Messner and Habeler, two of the finest Alpine climbers of our time, the expedition is a combination of confidence and fear. They both feel they can summit Everest unaided, "by fair means" but have no way of knowing the consequences - can they return without brain damage due to excessive exposure to the thin, freezing air? As they begin their climb their progress is rapid and confidence is high. Habeler recovers from a bout of food poisoning and they make a bid for the summit. Bad weather drives them back. The situation is now critical. Both men have been at high altitude for a long time. They set off in bad weather conditions. They stumble and crawl up, struggling for breath, inching toward their goal.

They have climbed Everest without oxygen masks, and have survived. Now they have to go back down. Messner who has lifted his goggles too often is snow blinded. They have made a pact with one another, for survival's sake, to abandon the other should he become incapacitated..... Everest Unmasked captures the dangers, the suffering and the elation of this historic milestone expedition.

52 minutes, color, NTSC format, retelecined and digitally remastered.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Everest Unmasked, August 2, 2007

By 

Mr. C. S. Buckman (France) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Everest Unmasked [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Living in France I worry about ordering from the US (postal delays, loss etc) but the service was very good, quicker than promised and the VHS cassette brand nes, and just what I wanted!