Ice Station Zebra (film)
Ice Station Zebra is a 1968 action film directed by John Sturges, starring Rock Hudson as the submarine captain, Patrick McGoohan as a British agent, Ernest Borgnine as a Russian defector and Jim Brown as a Marine Captain. It is loosely based upon Alistair MacLean's 1963 novel of the same name.
Cast
Rock Hudson - Cdr. James Ferraday
Ernest Borgnine - Boris Vaslov
Patrick McGoohan - David Jones
Jim Brown - Capt. Leslie
Anders
Tony Bill - Lt. Russell Walker
Lloyd Nolan - Admiral Garvey
Alf Kjellin - Col. Ostrovsky
Gerald S. O'Loughlin - Lt. Cdr. Bob Raeburn
Ted Hartley - Lt. Jonathan Hansen
Murray Rose - Lt. George Mills
Ron Masak - Paul Zabrinczski
Sherwood Price - Lt. Edgar Hackett
Lee
Stanley - Lt. Mitgang
Joseph Bernard - Dr. Jack Benning
John Orchard
- Survivor
Plot
Set in the Cold War era, the film opens with the maneuverings of a satellite in low Earth orbit as it fires its retrorockets. Forces on both sides of the iron curtain closely monitor its atmospheric reentry. The satellite ejects a capsule which parachutes into an icy wasteland. A figure swathed in heavy clothes soon approaches the position of the capsule, guided by a homing beacon. From a nearby snowdrift a second individual surreptitiously observes the first.
Shortly thereafter, James Ferraday (Hudson), US Navy Commander and Captain of the US nuclear attack submarine USS Tigerfish (SSN-509), meets with his commanding officer, Admiral Garvey near the Holy Loch US fleet naval base. Ferraday is told that he is being sent on a priority mission to rescue the personnel of Ice Station Zebra, a civilian Arctic weather station which is built on and drifts with the ice pack, its signals have indicated black disaster and requested rescue. Garvey adds that the rescue mission is actually a cover for another highly classified and much less humanitarian one, off camera Garvey provides Ferraday with a bit of unauthorized insight as to the true nature of the assignment.
Returning to his boat, the Commander oversees the embarkation of a Mr. ‘Jones’ (McGoohan), a British civilian who is obviously an intelligence agent, as well as squad of US Marines and gets under way.
Before long, a message arrives directing the Tigerfish to an at-sea rendezvous
with a naval SH-2 Sea Sprite helicopter which delivers Captain Anders (Brown)
who takes command of the Marine detachment, and Boris Vaslov (Borgnine), an amiable
defected Russian spy and friend of Jones.
The Tigerfish continues on to the Arctic ice pack, and after a bit of difficulty is able to make its way under the ice to Zebra’s last known position. Ferraday attempts to punch the conning tower up through the thick ice but is unsuccessful, and decides to use a torpedo to blast through. As a torpedo tube is opened the crew is greeted with a sheeting deluge of icy cold water.
The forward torpedo room begins to flood, its weight putting the sub into a death-dive which plunges the sub below its crush depth. Only the excellent design & workmanship of the General Dynamics Company's Electric Boat Division and the bravery and resourcefulness of Ferraday and his crew save them all from destruction.
Tigerfish Control Room, with Rock
Hudson at the periscope stand (right)As two of the most recent arrivals aboard,
and probably the most suspicious due to the nature of their occupation, Ferraday
confronts Jones and Vasilov, pointing out to them that a submarine torpedo tube
open at both ends can be no accident.
Brushing off his suspicions, Jones offers Captain Anders as an alternative candidate, or "nomination" as he puts it. With Ferraday now on notice that there is a saboteur on board, his crew attempts to continue the mission in an atmosphere rife with mistrust, suspicion, and finger-pointing. Finally locating an area of thin ice the sub broaches the pack and a rescue party led by Ferraday including medical personnel and the Marines sets out for the weather station.
After a very harrowing trip including the near loss of several members of the party to an ice crevasse, they finally reach the base to find most of its buildings burned to the ground and camp's personnel nearly dead from exposure.
Jones and Vasilov attempt to question the
survivors and it soon becomes obvious that the two spies are looking for something.
Under pressure from Ferraday, Jones finally admits that the actual reason they
are there is to attempt to recover a Russian espionage satellite’s film capsule
which fell near the base. Jones explains that the spy satellite camera was a very
advanced experimental model stolen from the British, using an enhanced film emulsion
developed by the Americans. He adds that the satellite was put in orbit by the
Soviet Union in an attempt to garner the exact location of every U.S. nuclear
warfare missile silo extant, if it had succeeded it would have been an intelligence
coup and shifted the balance of power.
Unfortunately for the Soviets
the camera malfunctioned, and as it orbited photographed many Russian missile
installations as well. Now both sides had the deadly earnest goal of recovering
the priceless film, but a further malfunction as reentry was attempted placed
the satellite in an incorrect polar orbit, making its recovery a near impossibility
for the Soviets. Russian officials eventually decided that their best option was
bringing the film down in the Arctic, when they did so both Russian and British
agents attempted to recover the film capsule, catching the hapless civilian weather
personnel in the cross fire and resulting in the near-destruction of Zebra.
Ferraday's party drills through the ice and streams a sonar transponder beacon in the water below, which summons the Tigerfish to the burned out base, once it arrives, Ferraday sets his crew to the task of assisting with the location of the capsule, but they make no headway.
With a combination of luck and shrewd observation Jones eventually discovers that the tracking device for the capsule’s homing beacon is hidden in the fuel tank of the ice station’s Snow coach transport vehicle and recovers it. He sets off to find the capsule but is ambushed and knocked unconscious by Vasilov who turns out to be a double agent still working for the Soviets. However, before Vasilov can make off with his prize he in turn is unmasked by Marine Captain Anders, but the Russian turncoat gets the drop on him. As the two men struggle a dazed Jones wakes up, and as he has suspected Anders from the beginning, kills him.
As only Jones, Vasiolov, and Anders were party to what transpired
in the Snow Coach shed, Ferraday is unaware of Vasilov's intrigue, but is very
suspicious of the man. He allows Vasilov to use the tracking device to locate
the capsule, which he does, encased in the ice, but the capsule's recovery is
interrupted as Russian paratroopers arrive on the scene.
Menacing the smaller American party they demand that the US forces withdraw and turn over the capsule. The standoff occurs around a mound of ice which shields the capsule from the Russians, who cannot see the two American crew and Vasilov who are crouched over the capsule. The Russians therefore are not aware the Americans are still in the process of recovering it. Instead the Russian commander believes the Americans already have the canister on board the Tigerfish and threatens to blow it up using a detonator they possess to activate the capsule's self-destruct mechanism.
The Russian commander demands the Americans hand over the capsule, and there is a moment of delay as Ferraday stalls the Russians whilst expecting Vasilov to defuse the booby-trapped capsule, and replace the film inside with a dummy film case thrown to him by Jones.
Instead of replacing it, Vasilov puts nothing back and so when Ferraday hands over the capsule, the Russians open the capsule, realise the deception and start shooting. A brief firefight ensues in smoke set off by the Russians.
In the confusion, Jones comes across Vasilov, grapples with him, and retrieves the film canister, and the smoke clears.
Another standoff ensues, and Ferraday insists Jones hands the film canister to the Russian commander, which he does reluctantly, throwing it at his feet.
Mission accomplished?Ferraday has a little trick of
his own up his sleeve though, he had found an electronic switch in the fuel tank
of the Snow coach after Vaslov had left to locate the canister using the tracking
device Jones had found. Realizing that the switch is detonator to activate the
capsule’s self-destruct mechanism he decides to destroy it rather than let
the Russians gain possession. The Russians use a balloon to send the capsule aloft
for mid-air pick-up. An incoming fighter jet is heard. At that point Lt. Walker
rushes the Soviet soldier holding their detonator and is shot in the process.
Instead, it is Commander Ferraday who activates his electronic detonator, destroying
the film canister. With neither side in possession of the priceless intelligence,
the Soviet paratroop commander allows that “the incident is closed”
and stands down, allowing the Tigerfish to complete the rescue of the civilian
scientists.
The film ends with a dissolving segue from the aftermath of the confrontation at the North pole into a depiction of a teletype machine churning out a news story hailing the heroic success of the ‘humanitarian’ mission as an example of superpower cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union.
As the score rises to a crescendo, the scene changes again to a medium shot of the Tigerfish underway on the ocean’s surface
Trivia
In
an interview with Dinah Shore not long before his death, Rock Hudson stated that
Ice Station Zebra was his favorite film.
Average Shot Length (ASL) = 7 seconds
There is a continuity error in the aircraft types shown. The five Soviet single-engined
MIG-21F models shown racing to the scene are interspersed with footage of four
twin-engined US F-4 Phantom II jets (see image at right).
The film, like The
Great Escape and Reservoir Dogs, does not have a single speaking part for a woman.
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.
Footage from Ice
Station Zebra was also re-used in the 1978 disaster film Grey Lady Down, the 1983
James Bond film Never Say Never Again and the 1983 Cold War thriller Firefox.
Commander Ferraday mentions to Mr. Jones that Admiral Garvey came up from
London to brief him, suggesting that Garvey is the Commander in Chief, U.S. Naval
Forces, Europe (CINCUSNAVEUR).
Commander James Ferraday erroneously refers
to the UK as the UK of Great Britain instead of the United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Northern Ireland.
NRO declares has a Unclassifed "Fact that"
an invidivual formerly possessing CORONA access was the technical advisor to the
movie and the resemblance of the loss of the DISCOVERER II capsule , and its probable
recovery by the Soviets on Spitzbergen Island, to the book by Alistair MacLean.
"Arctic Splashdown", an early episode of the popular Jonny Quest prime-time cartoon series of 1964, seems to be closely based on the Ice Station Zebra plot.
In the 1986 animated series Defenders of the Earth, Ming the Merciless' Antarctic base of operations is known as "Ice Station Earth," a possible nod to the movie Ice Station Zebra.
In the original 1999 edition of Unreal Tournament, one of the deathmatch levels is named Ice Station Zeto, in honor of the movie Ice Station Zebra.
The third and final secret level in the Descent 2 expansion 'Vertigo Series' is named "Ice Station Zeta."
An episode of the animated series The Venture Bros., called "Ice Station -- Impossible!", takes the inspiration for its name from Ice Station Zebra.
An episode of Sealab 2021 has researchers in the Antarctic trapped on 'Ice Station Zebra'.
The
first episode of the second season of Sam&Max was called 'Ice Station Santa'
Differences
with the novel
Sabotage under the ice cap: Aftermath in the forward torpoedo
room, with Rock Hudson and Ernest BorgnineWhile 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.
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 onboard 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
ambiguously note than the novel, reflecting the perceived thaw in the Cold War
following the Cuban Missile Crisis.
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