1968 Fest – A Very Cold War – Ice Station Zebra (1968)

I really feel like I should have more to say about Ice Station Zebra than I do.

After all, we have Rock Hudson as an American submarine commander, Patrick McGoohan as a British intelligence agent, and Jim Brown as a military officer who may very well have his own nefarious aims. All in support of an adaptation of a novel by Alistair MacLean. Really, this should be a slam-dunk combination for a blockbuster film.

Unfortunately it turns out the film is more block than buster.

It’s not that there’s anything particularly wrong with Zebra, just that it feels like it could have eben so much more. We spend the first half of the film on the submarine as it attempts to get to the station, and there are some truly interesting visuals of the sub under the ice, and then the second half is mostly a search for a Macguffin. The final part is a rather tedious confrontation between the Americans and Russian paratroopers who are looking for the same Macguffin.

Okay, I said above that there’s nothing particularly wrong with the movie, and while that’s true, there is one negative that stands out above all others. If you’ve looked at the poster, you may have noticed one name that I left out above: Ernest Borgnine. Now, don’t get me wrong, in the right role, I truly love me some Borgnine. But in Zebra, he’s called upon to play a Russian who has supposedly defected to the American side, and trust me, there aren’t many current comedies that have made me laugh as hard as Borgie’s attempt at a Russian accent.

As for the other stars, they are, as one would expect, just fine given the material they have to work with. One major disappointment is how badly the movie under-utilizes Jim Brown, who we know from other roles can be quite charismatic but here is relegated to a very small role and then is given a rather ignoble death before he can even really play a part in the finale.

I suppose that the movie wants to make a statement about the cold war and its effects on those who merely serve at the behest of their countries,, and we’ve seen myriad examples of how these ideas can be made truly entertaining. Unfortunately, Ice Station Zebra puts far too much emphasis on the “cold”, and not enough on the “war”.