Please don't spend money on this.

Disturbing yet enthralling

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Alistair MacLean's output was prolific but uneven. In my humble opinion, "Ice Station Zebra" is amongst his best work. Both a spy thriller and an adventure novel, "Zebra" is tense, gripping, suspenseful and clever. Its depictions of a freezing and hostile environment are in a class of their own and there's a continual vein of dark, sardonic wit. In fact the book ends with one of the best jokes in spy fiction, on the very last page. So this is a pretty good book. The movie, however, is very, very bad, both as an adaptation and as a piece of cinema in its own right. For reasons known only to God, the various makers of the movie decided to gut the book and replace the plot with one of their own invention. In the process much of the dialogue was lost, as was much of the purpose, much of the logic and much of the wit. The result is unpleasant, in a weirdly overserious and overstuffed way. It's pretty much the cinematic equivalent of a "turducken" : the meat of a chicken stuffed inside a duck, with the duck then stuffed inside a turkey. And the movie, which is longer than average, keeps on going and going and going, like an automated toy out of an ad for a battery.In case you're wondering why I'm still throwing this monstruosity 3 stars : a) how many times do you see the inside of a technologically advanced submarine and b) you get to admire the late Rock Hudson, who, just like Niagara Falls, the Everglades or the snow leopard, was an outstanding masterwork of nature.

I had heard for years how great this spy thriller submarine movie was supposed to be. Howard Hughes watched it over and over again, and it was so intense that he finally went insane. Football legend Jim Brown had one of his biggest roles, and presumably he was so outspoken and defiant (on and off the screen) that white Hollywood never cast him in another major motion picture. I was expecting something explosive, suspenseful, dramatic, full of action and danger. But it was absolutely terrible. The first forty minutes move at a crawl. Rock Hudson is a nice submarine captain, he has to go to the North Pole and rescue some scientists. A creepy English spy and a really dumb Russian come with him. And there's a mean black Marine officer who nobody likes. They all sit around and talk for about an hour before something happens. About an hour in, there are some cool explosions and some scary stuff under the arctic ice. But the final showdown with the Russians is laughable. And it lasts forever!One final note: there's a whole platoon of Marines in this movie. Look at their hair. They look like the Beatles! Real Marines keep their hair shaved high and tight at all times. They're called jar heads for a reason. Jim Brown yells at his platoon over and over but he never even mentions their haircuts.

I've seen more believable Star Trek episodes. With more realistic set design. With better acting. Involving William Shatner. I mean, you mix Borgnine ham and Hollywood styrofoam and you get a sandwich that gives you a gut ache. My favorite part was when the Rusians - who their commie captain just proudly announced SURROUND the Americans - toss some mustard-colored cover and then open fire at will. Miraculously, only one guy catches a bullet. I assume the $8 million budget went entirely to the actors' salaries because there's no evidence money was spent on anything else.

This is a monumental rendering of a rather ordinary adventure by Alistair MacLean involving the usual ingredients of spies, traitors, violence, sabotage, conflicts, political crisis, unbearable suspense, life and death and everything else, but is it not just a little overdone? In the first part of the film, until they finally reach that polar station after the middle of the film, there is very little acting and mainly only technical manoeuvres to get the submarine to its destination, which involves tremendous difficulties, especially with the lack of communications and of course a very thrilling sequence of almost getting stuck under the ice with the prospect of a submarine shipwreck, which isn't a very cheerful prospect for those suffering from claustrophobia on board - this is unavoidable in every submarine film - the claustrophobia is the main element of terror, although here it is not so much in focus.Patrick McGoohan is the ordinary hard line tough guy as an agent with a secret mission, he always is, Ernest Borgnine is the one of the leading actors that gets some opportunity to act, while Rock Hudosn is very bland as a character, almost like a mere figure-head of the journey, while the actor who makes an impression is Alf Kjellin in his brief but efficient appearance in the end. The lack of any woman during all these 2,5 hours adds to the futility and superficiality of the film.Not even Michel Legrand's music can save it. It is impressively majestic and almost bombastic like the whole film, but you see too much of the submarine and the waves and the ice and too little acting. The action in the end is hardly substitute enough for that either.The following Alistair MacLean films, like "Bear Island", "When Eight Bells Toll" and "Puppet on a Chain" are more effcient for being more tense and brief and intensive. Here there is too much circumstance and too little substance.