Ice Station Zebra is a 1968 action film directed by John Sturges, starring Rock Hudson, Patrick McGoohan, Ernest Borgnine and Jim Brown. The screenplay by Alistair MacLean, Douglas Heyes, Harry Julian Fink and W.R. Burnett is loosely based upon MacLean's 1963 novel of the same name. Both have parallels to real-life events that took place in 1959 (see below). The film was photographed in Super Panavision 70 by Daniel L. Fapp, and presented in 70 mm Cinerama in premiere engagements. The original music score is by Michel Legrand.
Plot
A satellite reenters the atmosphere and ejects a capsule which parachutes to the Arctic. During an ice storm, a figure soon approaches, guided by a homing beacon, while a second individual secretly watches from nearby.
The scene shifts to Commander James Ferraday (Rock Hudson), captain of the U.S. nuclear attack submarine USS Tigerfish (SSN-509). He is ordered by Admiral Garvey (Lloyd Nolan) to rescue the personnel of Drift Ice Station Zebra, a civilian weather station moving with the ice pack. However, the mission is actually a cover for a highly classified assignment.
Ferraday welcomes aboard British intelligence agent Mr. "Jones" (Patrick McGoohan) and a Marine platoon. While underway, a SH-2 Sea Sprite helicopter delivers Captain Anders (Jim Brown), who takes command of the Marines, and Boris Vaslov (Ernest Borgnine), an amiable Russian defector and spy and friend of Jones.
The Tigerfish makes its way under the ice to Zebra’s last known position. Ferraday decides to use a torpedo to blast an opening in the thick ice. However, the torpedo tube is open at both ends and seawater floods in, plunging the sub toward its rated crush depth. Ferraday and his crew are barely able to save themselves. During the investigation of the torpedo tube, Jones quickly determines that this malfunction should be impossible and, being an expert in sabotage operations, Jones even describes how someone could intentionally rig the tube to malfunction. Both Jones and Ferraday conclude that there is a saboteur aboard, and both suspect Anders, who is the one member of the rescue team who is the least known to Jones, Ferraday, and Vaslov. However, the mission is too important to abort.
Finally locating an area of thin ice, the sub surfaces. Ferraday, Vaslov, Jones, and a rescue party set out for the weather station. They reach Zebra to find buildings burned down and the scientists nearly dead from exposure. Jones and Vaslov begin questioning the survivors. It becomes obvious that the two spies are looking for something.
Jones reveals to Ferraday that an advanced experimental British camera was stolen by the Soviets, along with an enhanced film emulsion developed by the Americans. The Soviets sent it into orbit to find the locations of all the American missile silos. However, the camera malfunctioned and photographed their missile sites as well. A second malfunction forced a landing in the Arctic. The scientists were caught in the crossfire between arriving Soviet and British agents.
Ferraday sets his crew to searching for the capsule. Jones eventually finds a hidden tracking device. He is ambushed and knocked unconscious by Vaslov, who turns out to be a double agent. Before Vaslov can make off with his prize, he is confronted by Anders. As the two men fight, a dazed Jones wakes up and, not having seen his assailant, shoots and kills the wrong man.
Ferraday remains suspicious of Vaslov, but allows him to use the tracker to locate the capsule. They are interrupted when Russian paratroopers land at the scene. Their commander, Colonel Ostrovsky (Alf Kjellin) demands the capsule. Believing that the Americans have already secured the canister, the Russian commander threatens to activate the self-destruct mechanism with his transmitter. Ferraday stalls while Vaslov defuses the booby-trapped capsule and takes out the film. Ferraday hands over the empty container, but the deception is revealed and a brief firefight breaks out. In the confusion, Jones finds Vaslov, wounds him fatally, and retrieves the film.
Ferraday orders Jones to hand over the film. However, Ferraday had earlier found a device identical to Ostrovsky's. The Russians send the canister aloft by balloon to be picked up by an approaching aircraft. Lieutenant Walker makes a desperate attempt to get Ostrovsky's detonator, but fails and is wounded. Commander Ferraday then activates his detonator, destroying the film.
Ostrovsky concedes that "the incident is closed" and leaves, allowing the Tigerfish to complete the rescue of the civilians. A dissolving segue shows a teletype machine churning out a news story hailing the success of the "humanitarian" mission as an example of superpower cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Differences from the novel
While based on Alistair MacLean's 1963 Cold War thriller, the film version diverges from its source material.
The most obvious changes involved the names of the novel's characters:
- The submarine Dolphin became the Tigerfish.
- The British spy Dr. Carpenter was renamed David Jones.
- Commander Swanson was changed to Commander Ferraday.
Beyond the name change, the film's submarine has a more traditionally conventional design similar to the first nuclear-powered submarine, the Nautilus, rather than the more streamlined, teardrop-shaped vessel, either the contemporaneous Skipjack or Permit design, as described in the novel–no doubt simply because that was the available design of the USS Ronquil used to represent the fictitious Tigerfish during filming. The Tigerfish hull number 509 has never been used for an actual US Navy submarine, although it would appear again in fiction in the 1971 television movie Assault on the Wayne.
Additional characters were added, such as Soviet defector Boris Vaslov, Marine Captain Leslie Anders, 1st Lt. Russell Walker, and a U.S. Marine platoon trained in Arctic warfare. Much of the characterization involving the submarine's crew found in the novel was jettisoned in favor of these new cinematic creations. Unlike the novel, there is little overt Soviet interest in recovering the lost spy satellite other than a spy ship disguised as a fishing trawler waiting outside Holy Loch when the Tigerfish sets sail.
The novel's climax of a fire on board the submarine is substituted with the nearly fatal flooding of the forward torpedo room that occurs before the film's intermission.
The film's new climax involves a superpower confrontation between Soviet paratroopers and the American Marines, but concludes on a more ambiguous note than the novel, reflecting the perceived thaw in the Cold War following the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Production
The film rights to the 1963 novel were acquired the following year by producer Martin Ransohoff who hoped to capitalize on the success of adapting another Alistair MacLean novel to the silver screen as a follow-up to the 1961 blockbuster The Guns of Navarone.
"Navarone" stars Gregory Peck and David Niven were initially attached to this film, with Peck as the sub commander and Niven as the British spy, plus Edmond O'Brien and George Segal in the other key roles. Filming was set to begin in April 1965, but scheduling conflicts and U.S. Department of Defense objections over Paddy Chayefsky's screenplay and its depiction of naval life onboard the submarine delayed the start.
A new script was commissioned, but due to scheduling conflicts, the original cast was no longer available when filming began in Spring 1967. Principal photography lasted nineteen weeks, ending in October 1967. Ice Station Zebra was photographed in Super Panavision 70 by Daniel L. Fapp. The nuclear-powered Dolphin (renamed Tigerfish (SSN-509)) was portrayed in the movie by the diesel-electric Guppy IIA submarine USS Ronquil (SS-396) when seen on the surface. The underwater scenes used a model of a Skate class nuclear submarine.
Second unit cameraman John M. Stephens developed an innovative underwater camera system that successfully filmed the first continuous dive of a submarine, which became the subject of the documentary featurette The Man Who Makes a Difference.
Because his TV series The Prisoner was in production during principal photography in Ice Station Zebra, Patrick McGoohan had the episode "Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling" re-written to have the mind of his character Number Six transferred into the body of another character.
Cast
Plot origin and cultural impact
The plot has parallels to events reported in news stories from April 1959, concerning a missing experimental CORONA satellite capsule (Discoverer II) that inadvertently landed near Spitsbergen, situated in the Arctic Ocean on April 13 which was believed to have been recovered by Soviet agents. In 2006 the National Reconnaissance Office declassified information stating that "an individual formerly possessing CORONA access was the technical advisor to the movie" and admitted "the resemblance of the loss of the DISCOVERER II capsule, and its probable recovery by the Soviets" on Spitsbergen Island, to the book by Alistair MacLean.[1]
Reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes, who had experience both as a movie producer and a defense contractor for the U.S., is said to have watched Ice Station Zebra dozens of times on a continuous loop in his private hotel suite during the years prior to his death. Video tape or Laserdiscs, much less DVDs, were not yet available - the film was shown in the form of a spooled print running through a film projector onto a traditional screen.
The sets and miniature footage from Ice Station Zebra was re-used for the 1971 ABC made-for-television movie Assault on the Wayne, starring Leonard Nimoy, Joseph Cotten, Keenan Wynn, William Windom, Sam Elliott, and Dewey Martin, which also featured Zebra cast members Lloyd Haynes and Ron Masak.[1]
Footage from Ice Station Zebra (and the model of the Swordfish) was also re-used in the 1978 disaster film Gray Lady Down, the 1983 James Bond film Never Say Never Again and the 1983 Cold War thriller Firefox.
An episode of Sealab 2021 has researchers in the Antarctic trapped on 'Ice Station Zebra'.
Reception
Box office
Ice Station Zebra was released on October 23, 1968. The film became a major hit, which gave a much needed boost to Rock Hudson's flagging career.[2]
Critical response
Critic Roger Ebert did not like the film saying it was "so flat and conventional that its three moments of interest are an embarrassment" and finally describing it as a "a dull, stupid movie" and expressed disappointment that the special effects did not in his opinion live up to advance claims.[3]
Director John Carpenter asked "Why do I love this movie so much?" saying it was a guilty pleasure. [2]
Awards
Ice Station Zebra was nominated for two Academy Awards, in the special effects category (2001: A Space Odyssey won instead) and Best Cinematography (won by Romeo and Juliet).
References
Further reading
- Lawrence H. Suid. Sailing the Silver Screen: Hollywood and the U.S. Navy (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1996) ISBN 1557507872
External links
