Clevercell Very disappointing...

Onlinewsma Absolutely Brilliant!

Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

thegulls1 Here's a modern take on this 1968 epic: fantastic! Just got the BluRay release and it runs like an old David Lean epic with a title screen & music before the movie starts and, again, at Intermission. Performances are excellent all around, and the fX, all done prior to CGI, are remarkable. Suspense builds as Rock Hudson's nuclear sub streams North with spymaster Patrick McGoohan in tow, soon joined by a Russian defector, Ernest Borgnine, and a serious swat team led by James Brown (ex-NFL).Progress to the North Pole is slow and the sub is hindered by sabotage. The process of finally surfacing & crashing through the polar ice reminds me of similar scenes to come in Firefox a few years later. But our heroes are on a quest to rescue a cannister of spy film shot by a surreptitious satellite. To do so will be no picnic: watch for a great scene where a few Americans tumble into an ice crevice, which begins to slide shut. Ouch. Edge of yer seat... Horrible way to die: stuck & frozen in ice.Terrific story & cinematography. Based on the Allistair MacLean story. Highly recommended.

JohnHowardReid Copyright 2 July 1968 by Filmways, Inc. Distributed by Metro- Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. New York opening at the Cinerama Theatre: 20 December 1968. U.S. release: 23 October 1968. U.K. release: 9 November 1969. Australian release: 3 April 1969. Sydney opening at the Plaza (as in New York, London and other major roadshow engagements, the 70mm Super Panavision anamorphic print unsqueezed through a single projector on to the theater's Cinerama screen).Running times: 150 minutes (US and Aust), 145 minutes (UK). The DVD is available on Warner Home Video. Rating 10/10.SYNOPSIS: U.S. Navy Commander James Ferraday, stationed in Scotland, receives orders from Admiral Garvey to take his nuclear submarine to a British North Pole weather station called Ice Station Zebra. Ferraday's mission, which he does not yet know, is to recover a capsule from a grounded Russian space satellite containing reconnaissance photographs of all U.S. and Russian missile sites. Also aboard the sub are two British agents, David Jones and Boris Vaslov, the latter a communist defector, and two U.S. Marine officers, Lieutenant Russell Walker and Capt. Leslie Anders. En route, the vessel is sabotaged and almost exceeds its implosion depth before the crew can repair the damage and regain normal depth. Ferraday's suspicions that Vaslov is responsible are rejected by Jones, who vouches for his associate's loyalty and, instead, accuses Anders of sabotage. NOTES: Daniel L. Fapp was nominated for a prestigious Hollywood award for his Cinematography, losing to Pasquilino De Santiis for "Romeo and Juliet". Millar and Johnson were nominated for the same year's prestigious award for Special Visual Effects, losing to "2001: A Space Odyssey".Initial U.S.-Canadian film rentals gross: a disappointing $4,655,000 (just a mere $5,000 more than the initial domestic rentals for M-G- M's 1950 "Annie Get Your Gun"). As the distributor, M-G-M would have made money on this deal, but Ransohoff and Filmways would have been lucky to break even.COMMENT: We've been in submarines and journeyed to the North Pole before via movies, but not to the pole in Cinerama via nuclear submarine. Not that audiences noticed much difference between this one and Fox's 1954 CinemaScope thriller, "Hell and High Water". Nonetheless, it's he-man adventure, this race to the pole by Americans and Russians, with spies and double crosses and gunpoint confrontations once we finally get there. If you're not too bright, you may not tumble to the identity of the spy on board the sub but this, if anything, adds zest to the last phase. If you're not sure who the baddies or goodies or doubtful characters are, there's more suspense and surprise ahead amid the ice floes. John Sturges has ably directed it all with his usual competence.OTHER VIEWS: The most exciting movie ever made. - Howard Hughes.

Prismark10 Ice Station Zebra is an adaptation of an Alistair MacLean's novel. Given a big budget movie treatment by MGM, it is hampered by its length which restricts the flow of the action but it does keep its suspense.Commander James Ferraday (Rock Hudson) is the captain of the nuclear submarine USS Tigerfish who gets orders that three people will come on board.Mysterious cynical Brit, David Jones (Patrick McGoohan), gregarious Russian defector Boris Vaslov (Ernest Borgnine) and square Marine Captain Leslie Anders (Jim Brown).The men are on a mission to recover a film from a spy satellite that fell close to Ice Station Zebra. There has been no response from the station. There is a race to get to the Ice Station Zebra and find the film before the Russians but the USS Tigerfish has a saboteur.McGoohan dominates the film, his mysterious character is a British spy and all along knows what must be done. He eventually shares his secret to Hudson and the audience. Hudson holds his own in the standoff with the Russians

Ben Larson I don't know how I missed this film for 40 years, but I corrected that mistake.Not a blockbuster, with the only outstanding features being the cinematography and special effects, it is nevertheless a taut cold war thriller.The interplay between Rock Hudson, Ernest Borgnine. Patrick McGoohan, and to a lesser extent, Jim Brown made this a film where you are constantly focused on who is the good guy, and who is the bad.Long at 148 minutes, it never lags. There is a very good reason why Alistair MacLean novels make good pictures,