Ice Station Zebra (1968)

 

Ice Station Zebra is a spy thriller rather badly disguised as a rescue mission. An American submarine, commanded by Rock Hudson’s James Ferraday, picks up a mysterious British spy, Patrick McGoohan’s David Jones (not the one from the Monkees or David Bowie, sadly) to locate a group of British scientists at a weather station on the ice at the North Pole. The submarine has the odd name of the USS Tigerfish – go figure. The Americans also have to take on Jim Brown’s Capt. Leslie Anders, a tough Army guy who assumes control of the ship and inexplicably starts having everyone try to reassemble guns with their eyes closed, and Ernest Borgnine’s Boris Vaslov, a Russian defector who seems to be “friends” with the rather oily Jones. Ferraday doesn’t get any information on why all of these strangers are aboard his submarine; he’s just under orders to take them to Ice Station Zebra. Everyone seems to know that the Russians are also on their way because, as we very, very slowly discover, there’s some weird but valuable spy satellite recording that the Americans made but the British took and now the Russians want—or something like that. Frankly, it’s not quite intriguing enough to keep up with the specifics. We just spend a lot of screen time listening to a lot of back-and-forth accusations between the different factions on the sub before we get to the climactic moments. By the time everyone makes it to the North Pole, the base has already been destroyed and many of the people stranded there are either badly injured or dead. When one of the survivors states, more than two hours into the plot, “You took so long to get here,” I could honestly understand how he felt. This is a movie that moves – pardon the pun, but pun intended – at a glacial pace. It’s very talky as well, even when there’s a standoff between the Russians and the Americans, and there’s lots of guns involved. I would have expected much more shooting than yapping at a moment like that. The film’s cinematography is beautiful, though, especially the shots of the submarine under the ice, and the special effects are particularly effective when one of the torpedo hatches blows open and floods the submarine. You can understand why the film was nominated in those two categories. However, the special effects are nowhere near comparable to those of 2001: A Space Odyssey, the other nominee in that category, and the pacing for the entire film is just too slow.

Oscar Nominations: Best Cinematography and Best Special Visual Effects