Ice Station Zebra

I CE STATION ZEBRA doesn't afford much cause for complaint: its faults are all small and obvious, as are its virtues, and if you're in love with your date and can happily stare at him or her during the slow stretches, a relatively pleasant evening can be had for the price of a pair of tickets.

Had it been published ten years ago, Alistair MacLean's thriller might have transferred effortlessly for a smaller budget to a smaller screen. The plot is not much different from, say, Samuel Fuller's low-budget submarine picture Hell And High Water, and even the magnificence of Cinerama can't conceal the thinness of the story. The Ice Station Zebra souvenir booklet plot synopsis, these usually confined to initial statement of the premise, manages to tell everything up to the last ten minutes without appearing expensive. The souvenir booklet also pretty much gives away who the villain is, which isn't a very nice thing to do any way you look at it. The purpose of the above paragraph has been largely to warn you against buying the souvenir booklet.

Regardless, the film has a nice little story and Hollywood can still handle these things with class now and then. A scene between Rock Hudson and Patrick McGoohan when the latter reveals the nature of the mission we've been wondering about for two hours is a model of well-written exposition, neatly paced and satisfying to all. Other crucial plot points crumble in treatment: the obligatory submarine flooding scene is telegraphed too early by deliberately distracting conversational small-talk injected suddenly into a script previously given over to cut-and-dried function. More irritating, 90 percent of the mechanics involving a crucial roll of film (and far be it for me to spoil) everything by telling you what's on it!) are fuzzy and contrived, particularly after the clarity of the previous exposition.

Going down the list, John (Bad Day At Black Rock, The Great Escape) Sturge's direction is adequate, bolstered by Daniel Fapp's thoughtful, occasionally elegant, Panavision camera, Color is unexceptional. As for special effects, the studio North Pole is convincing insofar as none of us have been there to challenge it, and the airplane sequences, though plainly process shots miniatures, are kind of a groove and will evoke comfortable chuckling. After 2001, routine special effects simply don't pass by without a wince or two. The film's tight acting accounts for several of the small virtues, with Ernest Borgnine more disciplined than usual as a "mysterious Russian," and McGoohan (TV's Prisoner) having a high time with a performance which, though indistinguishable from any recent Burton or O'Toole job, shows he can handle second-rate dialogue with the best or them. Though McGoohan steals the picture, at least as far as the critics are concerned, I thought Rock Hudson was down-right competent as the submarine's Captain, look You know what you can expect from Rock Hudson.

I wish there were more to say about films like these. A year and a half ago Hollywood's apparent but inconclusive degeneration could justify enough nervousness to take the time to carefully pull apart a God-awful film like Frankenheimer's Grand Prix; but these days it's harder to get mad and, as things stand, I guess Ice Station Zebra isn't all that bad. It has the potential for being a good picture, but hanging over it are the ghosts of rewrite, of producer Martin Ransohoff whittling away at anything individual, leaving a gutless synthetic: sure-fire product at the expense of originality. It will make a lot of money.

I saw the picture six weeks ago at a Press screening in L.A. and two days later was lucky enough to speak with Fritz Lang, a magnificent man and one of our greatest artists. Long recounted that a major studio executive said to him during the summer, "We don't want to make good pictures out here--only moneymakers with as little risk as possible." Neither Lang nor I could think of a single working director here who actively opposes this true production code: "They've all given up," Lang said shaking his head more in irritation than sadness, "Nobody in Hollywood fights anymore."

In short, another greeting from the great cemetery to our West.