I saw “Ice Station Zebra” back when it came out in 1968, but nothing really stood out in my memory over the years other than it was a “spy flick.” Actually, first an espionage film as well as being an “action” movie based on a best-selling novel of the same name and written by Alistair MacLean – and he is one of my favorite novelists of all time. Also, “Ice Station Zebra” has a great back story as it reportedly was one of Howard Hughes’ favorite films (more about this later in the review). So, I watched it again recently on DVD and hoped it would ring up as at least “decent” in my view. Well, it doesn’t even reach “nearly OK” despite a stellar cast and a legendary director. Check out “Ice Station Zebra” for yourself … it’s easy to find in today’s streaming world and while you might give it a deficient review, it’s not a waste of your time.
‘Ice Station Zebra’
(1968; 148 minutes; rated G; directed by John Sturges and starring Rock Hudson, Ernest Borgnine and Patrick McGoohan)
HOWARD HUGHES LOVED IT, BUT ‘ICE STATION ZEBRA’ STINKS
(NOTE: I expanded this review with additional trivia and the updating of links on March 2, 2025.)
You would believe that the director who brought you “The Magnificent Seven” and “The Great Escape” (click here for my review) would be able to do an espionage movie that involves a nuclear submarine, a trip to the Arctic ice and a showdown with Russians … and do it well. OK, no surprise, if you read to here, that you’d be wrong. John Sturges’ “Ice Station Zebra” is bad.
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I’d have to say that “Ice Station Zebra” had a chance. It is based on a creative novel by Alistair MacLean, who was a best-selling writer at the time and the film has a somewhat-stellar cast including Rock Hudson, Ernest Borgnine, Patrick McGoohan and Jim Brown. However, Sturges apparently fell in love with too much detail on the sub; too much detail on the ice; and way too little detail on the story. Plus, with a running time of nearly 2½ hours, it is way, way too long on screen.
Sigh.
What could have been!
In short, Hudson, who headlines as “Cmdr. James Ferraday,” is the captain of a U.S. nuclear submarine being sent on a “rescue” mission to the Arctic ice. The quote marks for emphasis is sarcastic, since you know already that this isn’t a “rescue” mission.
A group of weather researchers has come into a spot of bother, as our British cousins would say, and it needs the nuke sub to transport a passel of U.S. Marines and two spies to save the day. Wait, two spies? And U.S. Marines? Yes, well, “Ice Station Zebra” is, at its heart, an espionage flick. You know this from the first reel and it’s not a surprise, but there are twists that I won’t spoil for you here. Let’s just say that there is some espionage, but way, way too little of it.
Although the Oscar-nominated (not for this one) Sturges had a lot at his disposal, he didn’t do a good job. Both McGoohan, who is British spy “David Jones,” and Borgnine, who is native Russian-now-on-our-side “Boris Vaslov,” could have been given the opportunity to develop their characters, but they were handcuffed by Sturges either not paying attention or, more likely, not caring.
Sturges would simply not care, according to several reports, when he mailed in his effort nearly a decade later on “The Eagle Has Landed” – that one from a Jack Higgins novel (click here for my review). I enjoyed that one, unlike “Ice Station Zebra,” but its star Michael Caine is quoted as saying Sturges, who didn’t attend editing sessions, told him he just did it for the paycheck and the film didn’t win over any critics. I can’t say it’s great on Sturges’ resume, but I wouldn’t say it is a deficit, either.
Well, back to “Ice Station Zebra.” If the filmmakers wanted to do a submarine action film (and a neat underwater cinematography method was developed for the film – more about this later in the review), then they didn’t need a star of Hudson’s stature as the headliner. Sadly, they used an espionage story and ruined both an action film and an espionage film at the same time.
Sturges wasn’t able to live up to his own filmmaking standard and, therefore you get too little acting and intriguing story and way too much detail of a sub and other technical matters.
Since I have to in a review of a film, here’s a look at some of the principal cast …
- An Oscar nominee (not for this one), Hudson doesn’t do a particularly bad job, but he doesn’t do a good one, either. I’d say his lack of energy for the film is more the director and screenplay than his ability and you can kind of forget this one on his resume. I liked Rock best in “Pillow Talk” with Doris Day (click here for my review) and was in “Lover Come Back” with “Pillow Talk’s” co-stars Day and Tony Randall. Hudson was nominated for “Giant” with Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean and he earned five Golden Globes over seven years beginning in 1959 for favorite male actor. He and was also co-star on TV’s “McMillan & Wife” and gained unwanted notoriety at the beginning of the AIDS issue. He died at 59 in 1985 of complications from AIDS.
A two-time Primetime Emmy winner, McGoohan tries a little too hard as the British spy in charge of the “Ice Station Zebra” operation. Like Hudson, he isn’t bad, but he has to suffer from a character who needs his booze (like most manly men of the time) and is obviously in love with being a spy. He did much better work on TV’s “The Prisoner” (from which he took a break to film this one) and earned his Emmys for a pair of “Columbo” episodes of the four in which he guest-starred. I also appreciate his work in “Silver Streak” with Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor (click here to read my review) as well as “Brass Target” (click here for my review) and with Eastwood in “Escape from Alcatraz.” He died at 80 in 2009.- A big screen and TV legend, Borgnine does OK as the Russian-born spy, but his early blustering that’s part of his “cover” wears thin quickly. Borgnine, who won an Oscar and a Golden Globe for “Marty,” really wasn’t the best choice for the character because you just don’t see him as this kind of spy – especially in his confrontation scene with Jim Brown. Still, he grades out OK. Borgnine is remembered as “Lt. Cmdr. Quinton McHale” for TV’s “McHale’s Navy” and I liked him as “Cabbie” in John Carpenter’s “Escape from New York” (click here to read my review). He won another Golden Globe for a Christmas TV movie and was nominated three other times including for “McHale’s Navy” and one of his two episodes on “ER.” Borgnine had 210 acting credits in a career spanning seven decades and died at 95 in 2012 of renal failure.
A former NFL star, Brown plays U.S. Marine Corps Capt. “Leslie Anders” and tries to push his character above what the paper-thin screenplay has done to it. Brown manages to be OK in the pivotal showdown scene with Borgnine, but really didn’t have much of a chance with this one. I liked him best in the classic World War II prisoner flick “The Dirty Dozen” and he did a notably good job in the simply stupid and awful NFL film “Any Given Sunday” from overrated Oliver Stone (click here for my look at truly awful flicks including this one). He was also in “Draft Day” (click here to read my review) and films such as “Black Gunn” and “Slaughter” and its sequel from the early 1970s. I liked him as “Fireball” in “The Running Man” with Arnold Schwarzenegger (click here to read my review). Brown died at 87 in 2023.- Although he doesn’t get much more screen time than some actors portraying U.S. submarine crew members, Alf Kjellin as Russian “Col. Ostrovsky” is worth noting above his supporting actor peers here. For one thing, Kjellin interacts beyond stereotypical dialogue with others (well, one – Hudson) and does a workmanlike job of it. I liked him better with a bigger role with Frank Sinatra in “Assault on a Queen” (click here for my review) in which they rob the ocean liner Queen Mary. The native of Sweden and started his career under the name Christopher Kent and had a quiet 66 credits spanning four decades with TV work including eight episodes on “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.;” four on “Mannix;” three on “Mission: Impossible;” and even one on “Eight is Enough”. He was a guest star on one with Hudson on “McMillan & Wife.” Kjellin died at 68 in 1988 of a heart attack.
After these five, I don’t have really much to write about the rest of the cast and the undistinguished cast of characters. You get some B-list actors such as Gerald S. O’Laughlin and Tony Bill, but you don’t get much in the way of characters or real importance to the story.
Actually, a barman who directs Hudson to a phone in the opening sequence conveys his character better than just about the rest of the supporting cast and he’s on screen for just the blink of an eye.
In the end, folks at the time must have enjoyed the special effects of the day (although the jet fighter plane sequence is lame because of how easy it is to see that the aircraft all move exactly the same) and, while not as realistic as today’s CGI work, the use of models is pretty cool to see again because of the long-lost use of them in film.
It’s too bad that Sturges grades out poorly on this one. Along with “The Magnificent Seven” and “The Great Escape,” he was nominated for 1955’s “Bad Day at Black Rock” with Spencer Tracy and also notched directing efforts in “The Old Man and the Sea” (also with Tracy and an uncredited boost from “The Day of the Jackal” director Fred Zinnemann) and another acclaimed Western with “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral” with Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas. After he did “Ice Station Zebra,” Sturges directed Clint Eastwood and Robert Duvall in “Joe Kidd” (click here to read my review) and previously directed another film based on a MacLean espionage novel: “The Satan Bug,” starring George Maharis (click here to read my review). Sturges died at 82 in 1992 of a heart attack while suffering from emphysema.
I usually save odd trivia for the cast and film notes at the end of my reviews, but here’s one that’s a little too involved to be brief. Howard Hughes reportedly said “Ice Station Zebra” was one of his favorite films and, after buying hotels in Las Vegas, he bought a TV station so that he could order the film and other programming whenever the spirit moved him.
Here’s an excerpt from a Ranker story about Hughes and “Ice Station Zebra” … “The movie would be shown repeatedly on KLAS, the Vegas television station Hughes owned. In his autobiography My Way, musician Paul Anka wrote of Vegas, ‘We knew when Hughes was in town. You’d get back to your room, turn on the TV at 2 am, and the movie Ice Station Zebra would be playing. At 5 am, it would start all over again.’ Hughes would evidently call the station and have them rewind to a certain scene if he wanted to see it again. In the final months of his life, his employees said the film ran through a projector on a seemingly neverending loop.” Click here for an expanded look at Hughes’ quirks including watching “Ice Station Zebra” …
“Ice Station Zebra” was outside the top 10 films at the U.S. box office in 1968 and brought in $4.6 million, according to Wiki. The No. 1 film was the now-classic sci-fi thriller “2001: A Space Odyssey” with $56.7 million and No. 10 was the now-classic and then somewhat cult fav “Night of the Living Dead” with $30 million. Disney’s “The Love Bug” was third with $51.2 million. Here are the other two films from 1968 that I’ve reviewed for this blog:
- “Bullitt” (sensational Steve McQueen) – click here for my review
- “Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows” (so-so sequel) – click for my review
Assorted cast and film notes (via IMDb.com):
- Hudson’s birth name was Roy Harold Scherer Jr. and he was 6-foot-5 with one nickname being “Rock Pyle;” Borgnine’s birth name was Ermes Effron Borgnino; Kjellin’s birth name was Alf Gunnar Helgesson Kjellin; Brown’s complete name was James Nathaniel Brown; and Sturges’ birth name was John Eliot Carne.
The Las Vegas television station Hughes owned reportedly noted that he ordered “Ice Station Zebra” played more than 100 times.- Oh, Hughes’ full name was Howard Robard Hughes Jr.; he was 6-foot-4; and his nicknames were “The World’s Greatest Womanizer” and “Sonny.” A native of Humble, Texas, he died in Houston at 70 of kidney failure in 1976.
- Hudson was quoted as saying “Ice Station Zebra” was his favorite film.
- Charleton Heston reportedly was offered the chance to play the role taken by Hudson, Heston didn’t because he didn’t believe the film had characterization. Also reportedly offered were Gregory Peck, Edmund O’Brien and George Segal. David Niven was offered the part ultimately played by McGoohan.
- The producer of “Ice Station Zebra” bought its rights the year after MacLean published the novel in hopes it would have the cinematic punch of “The Guns of Navarone” (click here for my review), which is also a best-selling MacLean novel. “Ice Station Zebra” was to star, like “Navarone,” Peck and Niven, but the two actors just said “no.”
- Directly from IMDb.com: “Miniature footage and film sets from this picture were re-used in the tele-movie Assault on the Wayne (1971) which also co-starred two members of this movie’s cast, Ron Masak and Lloyd Haynes. Footage from the movie, particularly the Tigerfish submarine model, was also re-used for the films Firefox (1982), Gray Lady Down (1978) and Never Say Never Again (1983).”
- The other film from a MacLean novel released in 1968 was the outstanding espionage/World War II movie “Where Eagles Dare” with Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood (click here for my review). Now that was a great motion picture!
- Finally and directly from IMDb.com: “Unique and innovative underwater camera equipment was developed for this movie by 2nd unit cameraman and cinematographer ‘John M Stephens’, a former U.S.A. Navy diver, who is billed in the credits for additional arctic photography. The camera system enabled the first ever filming of a continuous submarine dive and this technical innovation produced some outstanding photography for the picture. This achievement was encapsulated in an accompanying MGM short promo film The Man Who Makes the Difference (1968) which is available on the DVD for this movie.”
- Click here for IMDb.com’s extensive trivia page about the film …
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