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Vincent Price -

Remains of Andrew 'Sandy' Irvine Who Vanished in 1924 Found on Mount Everest

The foot, boot and sock thought to belong to Sandy Irvine, who disappeared during George Mallory's 1924 expedition to climb Mount Everest, have likely been found. They could be a vital clue in unraveling an even bigger mystery.

Remains believed to belong to a British explorer who vanished more than 100 years ago while climbing Mount Everest have finally been found.

Andrew Comyn "Sandy" Irvine, aged 22, disappeared along with the mountaineer George Mallory in June 1924. The pair were attempting to become the first people to scale the world's highest peak.

It's still a mystery whether they succeeded in their goal before they died. Mallory's remains were discovered in 1999, which were missing a photograph of his wife that the climber had planned to leave on the summit. Irving, who had been carrying a Kodak camera that may have recorded a possible historic summit, was never recovered. The summit was officially first reached 29 years later, when Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay scaled Everest from its south side in 1953.

Now, a National Geographic documentary team, including the Oscar-winning director Jimmy Chin and the climbers and filmmakers Erich Roepke and Mark Fisher, have found what they believe is Irvine's foot.

Encased in a boot and wearing a sock stitched with his name, the foot was discovered on Everest's Central Rongbuk Glacier, further down the mountain from Mallory's remains.

"I lifted up the sock," Chin told National Geographic, "and there's a red label that has A.C. IRVINE stitched into it."

Irvine and Mallory were last seen on June 8, 1924, as they set off to scale the summit. One of their expedition teammates, Noel Odell, reported spotting the two near the second of the mountain's three steps as two tiny black dots. One of the dots broke past the skyline during a brief parting of the clouds, then they disappeared.

Mallory's body was found less than 2,000 feet (600 meters) from the summit by the U.S. rock climber Conrad Anker. Mallory's remains were tied by a rope around the waist and had injuries suggesting that the pair had fallen while connected together.

By searching near these remains and scouring the glacier for clues, Chin and his team located the boot melting out of the ice.

"This was a monumental and emotional moment for us and our entire team on the ground, and we just hope this can finally bring peace of mind to his relatives and the climbing world at large," Chin said.

The team sent the remains to China Tibet Mountaineering Association, which is responsible for climbing permits on Everest's northern side. The find was also reported to the Royal Geographical Society, which organized Irvine and Mallory's expedition, and Irvine's great niece and biographer, Julie Summers.

"I have lived with this story since I was a 7-year-old when my father told us about the mystery of Uncle Sandy on Everest," Summers said, as reported by the Guardian. "When Jimmy told me that he saw the name AC Irvine on the label on the sock inside the boot, I found myself moved to tears. It was and will remain an extraordinary and poignant moment."

The Irvine family has volunteered to take a DNA test so that the identity of the remains can be conclusively determined. Meanwhile, Chin and his team will continue to search for more artifacts. If Irvine's camera is found and it can prove they scaled the peak, it could potentially rewrite history.

By Ben Turner.

My Hero, Toshiro: An Ode to Mifune (and Kurosawa)

BY BARLEY BLAIR

Legend has it that in 1947 Toshiro Mifune showed up at Toho Studios in Tokyo looking for a job as a camera operator. The casting department took one look at him and saw gangster/warlord/trickster/knave. "Weep," they said. "Why?" asked Mifune. "I'm not sad." "Okay, be angry," they said. Angry he could do; he tore the place up, terrorizing all the actors waiting for auditions. The casting department called security: "Get that madman out of here." But by luck Akira Kurosawa, already a veteran director, happened into the room as Mifune was destroying it. "Wait," said Kurosawa. "Perhaps there's something here that I can use." Something he could use indeed. Physically, Mifune was shortish, with slender, muscular thighs and calves beneath a broad torso and barrel chest worthy of a Tudor monarch. In many of his roles he wore a rakehelly moustache and sideburns. Makeup emphasized the circles under his enormous dark eyes, like the stylized villain in a 19th-century Japanese woodcut, and his dramatic, charcoal-smudged eyebrows completed the frame. He held his arms often slightly akimbo, his fists clenched. His voice wasn't especially deep, but he had superb dynamics, and he was a master of the roaring growl or growling roar, a Japanese sound unmatched for menace by any other language.

In Mifune's vast repertoire of gesture and movement, my favorite is his run. Japanese costume drama features lots of running; it's some kind of cultural thing. Mifune has the best run of all, his torso upright and his legs in semi-squat, for all the world like Groucho Marx, but speedier. Mifune began acting at a time and in a place where conventions of manliness did not preclude being expressive. Picture Gary Cooper tearing out his hair and stamping his feet; imagine John Wayne shrinking in terror; think about how Gregory Peck would look scratching his stomach; fancy Charlton Heston in tears--no casting director ever asked Charlton Heston to cry. And yet at the same time when male American actors were in their rock-jawed, reticent heyday, Mifune was, true to form, tearing up the place. For me, as a young heterosexual woman in the '50s, Mifune was a revelation. Masculinity did not require impassivity. Mifune was nothing if not emotive, and indubitably a stud. He was also comically, wittily vulgar--Marlon Brando with a sense of humor.

taking your father's spear a fathom deep

15th century armor on a 5th century figure in late 19th century style. because Arthur is eternal.