The Adventure Travel Film Festival presents 'Half Safe'

Join us on this epic journey at Stanfords as we welcome back the Adventure Travel Film Festival for the screening of  Half-Safe.

Made in 1955 this bizarre and wonderful film tells the extraordinary adventure of Ben Carlin, who circled the world, over land and sea, in his rusting amphibious jeep. 

In 1948, Ben Carlin set out from New York City with an audacious, lunatic plan to circumnavigate the world in an army surplus amphibious jeep called Half-Safe.
Fuelled by cigarettes and adrenaline, the Australian army major pushed his fragile, claustrophobic vehicle through fierce Atlantic hurricanes, across uncharted North African desert, into dense South-East Asian jungle and over the icy dark swells of the North Pacific. It was a 50,000-mile roll of the dice that by all rights should have killed him. 
When Ben finally pulled into Times Square a decade later, he found himself alone and forgotten, his legacy little more than a wake of women and empty whiskey bottles. And the worst was yet to come. Was it all a fool’s errand?
Or a pure manifestation of spirit?
Where does a dream end and an obsession begin?
What’s an acceptable cost to pay, and to what lengths will a person go not to be left with the haunting question: what if?
 

This film is an compelling account of Ben Carlin’s attempt to make an enduring mark on the world at the twilight of the Golden Age of Adventure.
 

Half-Safe 1955  16mm film
 
Duration: 55 mins

Tickets £5
Includes popcorn and a glass of wine/soft drink.