Cry of the Penguins (1971)

The basic thesis of Cry of the Penguins (also know as Mr. Forbush and the Penguins) seems to be that a nature documentary will be more interesting if we give a backstory to the guy doing the documenting. John Hurt is a devil-may-care grad student who takes a five month post documenting the mating habits of penguins in Antarctica, in an effort to impress that one girl he can't seem to make headway with; played by a 25 year old Hayley Mills, who at the time was married to the films producer Roy Boulting, 32 years her senior. The film had a difficult production, went through three directors, failed at the box office, and cost the three studios co-producing the thing considerable money. I actually enjoyed the film much more then I thought I would, it's an interesting experiment, odd, uneven, but on the whole I liked this failure.**1/2