- Actors: Rock Hudson, Ernest Borgnine, Patrick McGoohan, Jim Brown, Tony Bill
- Directors: John Sturges
- Writers: Alistair MacLean, Douglas Heyes, Harry Julian Fink, W.R. Burnett
- Producers: James C. Pratt, John Calley, Martin Ransohoff
- Classification: U
- Studio: Warner Home Video
- VHS Release Date: 23 Oct 1995
- Run Time: 148 minutes
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
- ASIN: B00004CJ99
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 12,130 in Video (See Top 100 in Video)
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Ice Station Zebra is a sorely underrated, often forgotten classic cold war thriller. It is very much a period piece in subject, tone and look but that just adds to the appeal. Rock Hudson is great as the sub commander trying to keep the rescue/covert mission on track while more questionable, shady characters join the crew all with hidden agendas and reasons to suspect everyone else. The excellent Ernest Borgnine and Jim Brown form part of this suspecting group but best among them is Patrick McGoohan who keeps a thin veneer of calm civility but occasionally shows he is a wound up powerhouse who will not be stopped form completing his mission. It is quite long and sags in a couple of places but this is made up for with a trek across the ice-pack (you know someone is going to fall in a ravine!) and thrilling sabotaging of the torpedo tubes(that water has to be freezing!). The 70 mm cinematography looks beautiful and sweeping rousing soundtrack is so good that you will be humming for days after. It is the sort of boys own adventure that they don't seem to make anymore.. more so by the fact that it has an entr'acte and and intermission! Because of this intermission and the length it is almost two films for the price of one - the first half a submarine film and then an arctic rescue thriller.
There are obviously better submarine/spy/cold war thriller films out there but rarely will you get one filled with such good actors all chewing up the scenery.
The perfect wet sunday afternoon movie - for the boys!
There are obviously better submarine/spy/cold war thriller films out there but rarely will you get one filled with such good actors all chewing up the scenery.
The perfect wet sunday afternoon movie - for the boys!
14 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:VHS Tape
I just finished watching this film 5 minutes ago, and I feel compelled to comment on this fantastic movie due to the impact it had upon me. Needless to say, if this film was available on DVD, I would be the first to buy it. The movie follows a sabotaged US submarine carrying a British (Patrick McGoohan) and Russian agent. One of these passengers, the viewer is forced into suspecting, is the saboteur and traitor trying to obtain the boby-trapped capsule containing a microfilm that all of the major superpowers desire. The movie maintains the viewers interest throughout, while perhaps not keeping the viewer on the edge of his/her seat. Moreover this film keeps the audience firmly interested in the transfixing storyline, concluding in a Sixth Senthesque twist finale exposing the Russian spy. While the bulk of the film is not action packed, the ongoing mystery is rivetting, and the final scene is as tense as any thriller/chiller available today exsacerbated by the Russian-American military stand-off on the ice plains near the north pole. Worth buying simply to see the ever cold and covert character portrayed by McGoohan in this and other shows, especially the unbreakable Number 6 in "The Prisoner"
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
With such an assembly of actors and a director who knew his stuff, I honestly expected more from a film taken from a great book, but sadly it didn't do the book or the cast justice.
Where was the exciting fire aboard the submarine after the rescue? It had gone. Instead we had a company of Russian troops being parachuted down to confront a company of US Marines who had been carried on the submarine to the Ice Station (neither the Russian or the American troops had been in the book) and to me it seemed the show-down between the two sides was as frustrating as the storyline; great potential but nothing really happened - it was like opening a huge box of a present and finding a tiny uninteresting object inside.
It would have been better to dispense with the pointless confrontation between the two armies and concentrate on the story of why secret agents from the UK and Soviet Union were there anyway. What about the characters of the Ice Station? Almost ignored and passed over, they were just names, yet Ernest Borgnine and Patrick McGoohan knew each by name, and as these two guys were spies it stood to reason the blokes on the Ice Station were also spies or at least in cahoots, and would have known something.
Too much made of making it like a Cold War stand off and not enough injected into it of a man hunt between the protagonist and antagonist. We had a brief flash at the end but by then I'd lost interest and couldn't care who was what or what happened to them.
Where was the exciting fire aboard the submarine after the rescue? It had gone. Instead we had a company of Russian troops being parachuted down to confront a company of US Marines who had been carried on the submarine to the Ice Station (neither the Russian or the American troops had been in the book) and to me it seemed the show-down between the two sides was as frustrating as the storyline; great potential but nothing really happened - it was like opening a huge box of a present and finding a tiny uninteresting object inside.
It would have been better to dispense with the pointless confrontation between the two armies and concentrate on the story of why secret agents from the UK and Soviet Union were there anyway. What about the characters of the Ice Station? Almost ignored and passed over, they were just names, yet Ernest Borgnine and Patrick McGoohan knew each by name, and as these two guys were spies it stood to reason the blokes on the Ice Station were also spies or at least in cahoots, and would have known something.
Too much made of making it like a Cold War stand off and not enough injected into it of a man hunt between the protagonist and antagonist. We had a brief flash at the end but by then I'd lost interest and couldn't care who was what or what happened to them.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
An American nuclear sub.. a sky full of Russian paratroopers--and a...
(THE FILM)
Ice Station Zebra".
. Remember The Name -- Your Life May Depend On It!!!!
John Sturges's adaptation of Alistair MacLean's novel
stars Rock Hudson as... Read more
Ice Station Zebra".
. Remember The Name -- Your Life May Depend On It!!!!
John Sturges's adaptation of Alistair MacLean's novel
stars Rock Hudson as... Read more
Published 25 days ago by S. F. husseiny
Great, not a love interest in sight.
Great film, simply because like most decent WW2 / Cold War submarine films it drops any relationship stuff in sight. Big Pat at his best, And in fairness Hudson was OK on this one.
Published 1 month ago by Barry Wom
Great film.
If you're a fan of submarine films here's a must have for the collection. Some great sequences and interesting under the ice photography. Read more
Published 7 months ago by S. Swingler
Ignore the Phantom Migs
Classic adventure based on a novel by Alistair Maclean. A stellar cast, non-stop action and intrigue and marvelous visuals and sets - the star of which is the tilting submarine... Read more
Published 9 months ago by Shrewlord
dated but fun
A slow movie compared to nowadays. You can clearly see that this was pre-CGI in the models they use and the set for the Pole-scenes. Read more
Published 11 months ago by Ph Nijman
Ice Station Zebra
A very poor comparison to "Hunt for Red October" I had forgotten how wooden Rock Hudson was as an actor!
Published 17 months ago by Chris
ice station zebra
What can one say? Films are rarely as good as the books, certainly as far as Maclean books go. This is no exception, though clearly streets ahead of Bear Island, which is laughably... Read more
Published 21 months ago by eastcoast
Ice cool...
It's rumoured this was Howard Hughes' favourite film with sometimes daily viewing sounds strange,but he also had delivered the first copy of each new Bond movie to his screening... Read more
Published on 24 May 2010 by George Henderson
Classic submarine yarn boasts top notch image and sound quality
Patrick McGoohan was a strict Catholic, and refused any role that may have involved hanky-panky with the opposite sex. Read more
Published on 6 Dec 2009 by K. O'Leary
A proper Sunday afternoon film!!
I'd never seen this film, until I bought it on a 'I need something to watch on Sunday' whim (yes I name my whims), ticking all the boxes; adventure story, great cast, inviting... Read more
Published on 20 Oct 2009 by Bobbie Pin
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