This fantastic trip is the longest of all of Georges Méliès's films (1861-1938): 34 pictures and 650 metres of film relate Professor Maboul's tumultuous expedition to the Pole, embodied by the film director.  This work brings together the different elements that are the basis of Méliès's talent and success: a poetic universe, special effects, theatrical staging, ingenious machinery, splendid lunar decor.

The subject of this film was a burning issue at the time:  in 1909 explorers Robert Peary (1856-1920) and Frederick Cook (1865-1940) both claimed they had conquered the North Pole.  In 1911 Roald Amundsen (1872-1928) and Robert Falcon Scott (1868-1912) reached the South Pole within one month of one another.  This arctic competition fascinated the crowds.

In 1911, the finances of Star Film by Georges Méliès were fragile.  After fifteen years of filmed imagination and fantasy, the film maker had to face the competition:  the film industry was developing and getting organised, new techniques and aesthetics consequently appeared modifying the public's tastes.

Méliès had stopped filming for a year when Charles Pathé (1863-1957), whose company was then booming, offered to finance the productions of Star Film. In return, Pathé took the film maker's studies in Montreuil as guarantee and became exclusive distributor and held editorial control of the works.  So here Georges Méliès was able to make a belated wonder of his fabulous repertoire.  The Conquest of the Pole is the most successfully complete of his last six films, all financed by Pathé.

The quirk of fate was such that Pathé's support only hastened the ruin of Georges Méliès, whose debt increased with each shoot.  The film maker wasn't able to adapt to the technical, aesthetic and industrial evolution of cinema.  So the commercial takings of his last films were not enough to restore the financial situation of Star Film, which stopped all activity in 1913.