Ice Station Zebra (1968)
There are some movies that are scary, there are some movies that are boring, and there are some movies that miraculously manage to be both. Case in point is Ice Station Zebra, a pseudo-thriller about a nuclear-powered submarine sailing to the North Pole.
Parts of this cold war thriller are indeed thrilling, but since it’s a long movie and there are so many more boring bits than exciting ones, I wouldn’t recommend it unless you really like movies from this era. Rock Hudson stars as the submarine commander, told by Lloyd Nolan that he must rescue a stranded group from the North Pole and that he must take along Patrick McGoohan, a mysterious Englishman who refuses to tell Rock his real reason for coming along during the mission. Meanwhile, a Russian Ernest Borgnine tags alone with his own secrets, and the suspicious Jim Brown suspects someone is up to no good.
I tried very hard, but I couldn’t figure out which person really was up to no good, and I couldn’t keep up with each double-cross or secret plot. Russians, Chinese, space wars—all the hot topics in the 1960s—are all bandied about during the long conversations, but the script is so dry and the actors don’t help to jazz it up for the audience. The original casting was Gregory Peck and David Niven as the two leads, as a follow-up to the fantastic The Guns of Navarone, and had they made the film, I’m sure it would have not only been better acted but easier to follow.
Overall, there are some cool special effects when the submarine goes underneath the iceberg and tries to pound through it from the bottom up, but it’s a very boring two and a half hours. The music doesn’t fit, and no one involved in the production realized how cold the North Pole really is. The actors wouldn’t be able to walk around with their faces exposed for minutes at a time, nor would they be able to speak without puffs of air escaping from their mouths and icicles and frost forming on inconvenient places. To me, details like that are much more important than special effects, since they take the audience out of the splendor of the movie. This may have been Rock Hudson’s favorite of his films, but it’s certainly not mine.
Want to watch it? Click here to see it on ok.ru and thanks "Juhi Thaker" for posting!
More Rock Hudson movies here!
Parts of this cold war thriller are indeed thrilling, but since it’s a long movie and there are so many more boring bits than exciting ones, I wouldn’t recommend it unless you really like movies from this era. Rock Hudson stars as the submarine commander, told by Lloyd Nolan that he must rescue a stranded group from the North Pole and that he must take along Patrick McGoohan, a mysterious Englishman who refuses to tell Rock his real reason for coming along during the mission. Meanwhile, a Russian Ernest Borgnine tags alone with his own secrets, and the suspicious Jim Brown suspects someone is up to no good.
I tried very hard, but I couldn’t figure out which person really was up to no good, and I couldn’t keep up with each double-cross or secret plot. Russians, Chinese, space wars—all the hot topics in the 1960s—are all bandied about during the long conversations, but the script is so dry and the actors don’t help to jazz it up for the audience. The original casting was Gregory Peck and David Niven as the two leads, as a follow-up to the fantastic The Guns of Navarone, and had they made the film, I’m sure it would have not only been better acted but easier to follow.
Overall, there are some cool special effects when the submarine goes underneath the iceberg and tries to pound through it from the bottom up, but it’s a very boring two and a half hours. The music doesn’t fit, and no one involved in the production realized how cold the North Pole really is. The actors wouldn’t be able to walk around with their faces exposed for minutes at a time, nor would they be able to speak without puffs of air escaping from their mouths and icicles and frost forming on inconvenient places. To me, details like that are much more important than special effects, since they take the audience out of the splendor of the movie. This may have been Rock Hudson’s favorite of his films, but it’s certainly not mine.
Want to watch it? Click here to see it on ok.ru and thanks "Juhi Thaker" for posting!
More Rock Hudson movies here!