Main Cast: Richard Burton, Robert Ryan, Carolyn Jones, Martha Hyer, Jim Backus
Release Year: 1960
Country: US
Run Time: 143 minutes
Plot
Based on the Edna Ferber novel, this engrossing period piece covers the triumphs, tragedies, loves, and sorrows of a few generations of Alaskan settlers between the first World War and the granting of statehood in 1959. Zeb (Richard Burton) is a local despot whose tough personality dominates the region. He is openly bigoted against the Inuit, and his greedy nature has led him to reject the woman he really loves to marry another with plenty of money. Thor (Robert Ryan) starts out as Zeb's ally and friend, but due to their diametrically opposed natures, that friendship turns into an entrenched hatred. In this unpredictable, harsh wilderness Zeb discovers that he ultimately cannot control his daughter and irony of ironies, he and Thor end up connected through the marriage of a son and daughter. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
Review
Ice Palace is a surprisingly forgotten adaptation of one of Edna Ferber's sprawling sagas, and when it is remembered, it is typically dismissed. In fact, it's a moderately entertaining film, albeit one with huge flaws. Palace could have been a very memorable picture, something on the scale of Giant. Unfortunately, it lacks two things that Giant had: a visionary director like George Stevens who had a real feeling for the demands of the story, and a screenwriter that knew how to select the essential elements in Ferber's work and translate them into cinematic terms. Palace's director, Vincent Sherman, doesn't find the poetry in the characters and the situation, and he certainly doesn't find the poetry in the setting: most of the film is shot in a studio, and the on location shots, which should be key to creating the character of Alaska, are rudimentary. Harry Kleiner's screenplay tries to include too much of the novel; it's faithful, but it means that characters are simply sketched in and the plot is handled in the broadest strokes. Those flaws aside, there's still a real attraction to the story of two men who are both at odds with each other and fated to be a team, and in the many challenges that they and their families face. It's hokey, but it's undeniably appealing, especially with such personas as Richard Burton, Robert Ryan {$Carolyn Jones and {$Martha Hyer around to add interest. None of these actors is giving an especially good performance, but they add considerable sparkle to the proceedings. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
The film follows the Edna Ferber novel in telling the story of Zeb Kennedy (Richard Burton) and Thor Storm (Robert Ryan), Alaska settlers in the period following World War I. Kennedy works his way up through the Alaskan fish cannery business, befriending Wang, a Chinese worker (George Takei), and Storm, an idealistic fishing boat captain. Kennedy and Storm begin to plan a cannery together in the fictional Alaskan town of Baranof, when Kennedy falls for Bridie Ballantyne, Storm's fiancée (Carolyn Jones). The feeling is reciprocated, but Kennedy chooses money over love, marrying Seattle heiress Dorothy Wendt (Martha Hyer). When Storm discovers his disappointed fiancée's infidelity, he punches out Kennedy and flees into the wilderness on a dog sled.
Kennedy launches a packing company in Baranof, hiring Wang as well as his old friend, Dave Husack (Jim Backus). His persistent feelings for Ballantyne, now abandoned by her fiancé, are no secret to his wife. The Kennedys give birth to a daughter, Grace. Storm returns to Baranof with an infant son, Christopher, born to an Eskimo wife who died after labor. Over the following years, Storm comes to resent Kennedy for his cannery's use of salmon traps, which are depleting the salmon population and putting fishermen out of business. Meanwhile, their children, Christopher (Steve Harris) and Grace (Shirley Knight), begin a romance. Kennedy tells Storm to keep his "half-breed kid" away from his daughter. Storm, drawing on the support of fishermen and Alaska natives, becomes a candidate for the Alaska Territorial Legislature on a platform advocating statehood and opposing the excesses of business mogul "Czar" Kennedy. Christopher and Grace elope to live among Christopher's maternal relations in the fictional village of Anavak. Grace's mother, Dorothy Kennedy dies.
Grace becomes pregnant, and the young couple decides to make a journey to Baranof so that the child is born there. They set off by dog sled, but Grace begins labor en route, and Christopher is waylaid by a bear and killed. Grace's father, Zeb, along with Thor and "Aunt" Bridie, intercept and shoot the bear. Grace gives birth to a baby girl, Christine, but dies. Christine grows up between the houses of Ballantyne and her feuding grandfathers, Kennedy and Storm. Kennedy grooms Dave Husack's son, Bay (Ray Danton), to be his champion in the territorial legislature. He encourages the young lawyer to marry Christine for political advantage. Ballantyne discovers and exposes the plot, and the engagement is broken.
Storm, on a flight to Juneau, is forced by a snowstorm to make a crash landing on a glacier. Ballantyne prevails on Kennedy to make a risky flight to save Storm and his pilot, an Eskimo named Ross Guildenstern (Sheridan Comerate). Storm survives, and his speeches before Congress are decisive in winning approval for Alaska's statehood. Victorious, Storm gives a conciliatory radio address, thanking erstwhile statehood opponent Kennedy.
The rights to Ice Palace were sold to Warner Brothers for $350,000 before the novel was published.[1] Warner Brothers had already had a success with a 1956 adaptation of another Edna Ferber novel, Giant.
Ice Palace was George Takei's motion picture debut.
Reception
Ice Palace was a commercial and critical failure. A Ferber biography described it as "glacial at the box office."[2]The New York Times reviewer called it "as false and synthetic a screen saga as has rolled out of a color camera" and "no more authentic than cornstarch snow on a studio set."[3]
