Month: September 2019

For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943)

For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, September 2019) You could be forgiven for thinking, at first glance, that Farewell to Arms and For Whom the Bell Tolls are the same movie—after all, aren’t they both Hemingway novel adaptations featuring Cary Grant as a man who fall in love with a woman during wartime? Well, yes, but there are more than a few differences. For Whom the Bell Tolls, having been made ten years later, features colour cinematography, numerous exteriors, Ingrid Bergman (with short hair), more grandiose wartime sequences, fewer classical-Hollywood touches, and more assurance in how it presents its story. As a long (…very long…) look at the life of rebels during the Spanish Civil War, it spends quite a bit of time detailing life in the bush, tensions between combatants and the love story between our two leads. Cary Grant is his usual solid yet unusually bland self, playing opposite Ingrid Bergman but with both of them being outshined by Katina Paxinou’s harsh-talking hard-living character. (Paxinou won an Oscar for the role, and you can immediately see why.) Given that our protagonist is a dynamiter, there are a few explosions to make things far more interesting. Alas, the film will try anyone’s patience at nearly three hours complete with introduction and intermission.  In trying to adapt a novel as faithfully as possible, the script forgets that movies work differently and the entire thing feels far too long. Still, it’s well executed, occasionally moving, explosively exciting at times. But For Whom the Bell Tolls could have been shorter. And it does end on a note very similar to that of Farewell to Arms, triumphant Hollywood cues outshining tragedy and all.

Stardom (2000)

Stardom (2000)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, September 2019) The interesting cinematic conceit on which Stardom is built remains intriguing twenty years later: What if we saw the rise and fall of a supermodel entirely through camera lenses, as if a mad fan collected her TV appearances and home videos in a compilation video? Jessica Paré convincingly stars as a Cornwall (ON) hockey player plucked out of obscurity to become a fashion supermodel, loving and leaving a trail of men in her wake (including a restaurateur played by Dan Aykroyd). Executed at the turn of the century and taking place in a media-saturated environment, Stardom has aged significantly more than many other movies of the time, but it’s already showing signs of being a period piece rather than being dated: the references dwell in the late-1990s, and a circa-2019 take would have more cell phones and social media than we could stand. It does take a few minutes to get used to the collage aspect of the film (save for a brief introduction and a quiet epilogue, we get “in the camera” early on and escape the structure of a typical narrative), but its effectiveness does start to build, especially when we realize that the years are accumulating and the scope of the story is going from Cornwall to New York and places beyond. Could it have been better? Well, yes—as much as it’s enjoyable to piece together the narrative of the protagonist’s life through indirect and often misleading footage, it’s not much of a story. The satire is fine but typical (news reports from the past two decades have made the same point over and over, cutting away from mass tragedy to celebrity gossip) while stock characters abound. Writer-director Denys Arcand does know what he’s doing, though, and the mixture of French-Canadian and English-Canadian actors (plus notables such as Frank Langella) is interesting in its own right. Intriguingly, Stardom does have its built-in distancing mechanism: as interesting as it can be for movie geeks to see a film told through surface footage, there aren’t that many pathways to what the character is thinking or feeling: This is akin to a second-grade biography made of media clippings rather than interviews with the subject. Our protagonist is often used by other people making their own points, which is part of the lesson. Still, Stardom is more than worth a look on a purely experimental level, as an exploration of what cinema can do once it gets away from its own conventions. I’m a bit surprised that the film remains obscure outside Canada, but that’s the nature of non-stardom.

Adventures in Babysitting (1987)

Adventures in Babysitting (1987)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(In French, On TV, September 2019) Despite what you may think, Adventures in Babysitting isn’t a John Hughes film. On the surface, it sure looks like one: The story goes from the Chicago suburbs to the big city itself with middle-class teenage protagonists getting embroiled in adventures in the big city à la Ferris Bueller, alludes to cartoonish villains of Home Alone vintage and spends a significant amount of time making its characters grow up in absentia of any parental supervision … like much of the Hughes oeuvre. But it’s a Christopher Columbus film made from a David Simkins script, and the differences do start to become obvious once you look closer. It tries to have a broader appeal than Hughes film with protagonists going from 8 to 18, is far less structured in its one-thing-after-another approach. (Call it a “picaresque journey through 1987 nighttime Chicago, sanitized for family entertainment”) and it doesn’t hit the sentimentalism as hard as Hughes does. (But do remember that Columbus and Hughes would soon collaborate on 1990’s Home Alone.)  The result, spearheaded by Elisabeth Shue with noteworthy early roles for Vincent d’Onofrio and Penelope Ann Miller, is a bit scattered but amiable enough: it’s not trying to make a grand statement, but the way things quickly spin out of control from a simple premise is amusing enough. Clearly geared toward family entertainment, Adventures in Babysitting remains watchable even thirty years later—there’s some timeless material here about teenagers getting away with awesome thrills while their parents aren’t looking in their direction, and just enough excitement without falling into danger.

Crypto (2019)

Crypto (2019)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, September 2019) There’s something worth exploring in the ways Crypto uses the mechanics of a connected world to bring international intrigue to a sleepy upstate New York small town. As our protagonist (a genius financial mind) gets demoted and sent back to his hometown for “compliance matters,” he conveniently becomes embroiled again in family drama just as he discovers money laundering shenanigans close to home. Fans of cryptocurrency shouldn’t count too much on this film to give an even-handed or even insightful depiction of those here—it’s used strictly as a plot device to get dark Russian money in a small town so that heroes and villains can have an excuse to wave their guns around. It’s actually a pretty good idea for low-budget filmmakers, who can now use USB keys to heighten the drama of what can happen away from big cities. On the other hand, we’re kind of stuck with the consequent budget and reduced ambitions: Despite known actors such as Kurt Russell, Liam Hemsworth and Alexis Bledel, Crypto is nothing more than direct-to-video fare, not badly executed but lacking in the kind of added value that a great script or direction could bring to the premise. The small city setting looks bland and gray, while the actors have trouble getting the technological exposition out smoothly. The characters are a bit dull (despite the “weaponized autism” crack, the lead character feels a bit bland) and their situations feel taken out of small-town Cliché Central. Even then, Crypto is not bad, not good, somewhere in the middle with only a bit of added conceptual interest in what it attempts to do. As of now, though, the collision of global threats in small town remains a fertile ground for someone else to have a go at it. While Crypto focuses on Russian mobster operating through a Canadian intermediary on the shores of Lake Ontario, there’s clearly more to be done with the idea.

Isn’t it Romantic (2019)

Isn’t it Romantic (2019)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, September 2019) Considering my surprising fondness for romantic comedies and my interest in meta-fictional conceit, I really thought I’d enjoy Isn’t It Romantic more, especially as it explicitly takes on the rom-com as a target for satire. The Big Idea here is to have our deeply skeptical protagonist put in a coma and thrust in the middle of an alternate romcom-focused reality of her own life. As she wonders at how things are now colourful and nice and convenient, she also complains at all the clichés around her. It should work … except that as a star vehicle for Rebel Wilson, Isn’t It Romantic starts sharing some of the same annoyances that her comic persona can create. Nothing is subtle here: the film makes sure to underline each joke three times, setting it up with blatant exposition and then having characters comment once or twice about the same thing that viewers caught moments earlier. It starts feeling like a desperate comedian convinced he’s bombing after a while, as the film thrusts each joke in our face and makes sure we acknowledge its existence. The film, like Wilson herself, could use a bit of self-respect and restraint…. Although that’s a near-impossible request considering what Wilson does in one movie after another. (She’s one of those comedians who work far better as an ensemble cast member than a lead.)  No matter the reason, I usually found myself more annoyed than charmed by the result, and I’m not even holding the film’s embrace of the clichés it portrays against it. The musical numbers feel forced (and I usually love musical numbers), the careful worldbuilding is brought to the forefront time and time again, and the dialogue takes pleasure in being as obvious as possible, even in a metafictional context. Despite liking most of the actors here (and Chris Hemsworth does once again affirm his talent for comedy), Isn’t it Romantic is more annoying than anything else—a waste of a good concept that makes even the flawed They Came Together look far better in comparison. I may not have been in the best of moods in watching the film, but there’s something more than just not feeling it—it’s a film with significant issues of its own.

#cats_the_mewvie (2019)

#cats_the_mewvie (2019)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On TV, September 2019) I went through an entire spectrum of emotions while watching #cats_the_mewvie, but I’m not sure they’re the emotions that the filmmakers intended. As a cat owner and charter member of the non-academic web (check this web site’s copyright notice), I was intrigued by the promise of a film exploring how and why cats have become the Internet’s favourite pet, launching feline celebrities (!) and countless memes along the way. This Canadian documentary film does manage to deliver what it promises: a look at Internet-famous cats and their owners, along with shallow musings on why cats are awesome and the nature of animal Internet celebrity at an age of influencers. But it didn’t take long for my cynical nature to start poking at the film’s argument—while #cats_the_mewvie does nod in the direction of some of the cyberfelinosphere’s less savoury aspects (“I would never use my cat merely to make money” protest owners who do exactly that, but not like those people) it doesn’t spend a whole lot of time there, instead moving on to the kinds of unarguable platitudes that kill any critical thought. Yes, some people are actively chasing fame and notoriety, celebrating every dozen new followers as if it was important. It’s a treadmill without a point (as briefly acknowledged by some clips), but it’s about cats and cats are cute and that’s all we really need to know, right? Suffice to say that #cats_the_mewvie is made for popular appeal, not scholarly questioning. Still, by the end of the film we do get the usual uplifting envoi and I found myself begrudgingly conceding a few points: The point of cats on the Internet isn’t cats (which cuts both ways: cats don’t care about follower counts, but their owners do), it’s about people connecting through cats and having something cute to see as a chaser to the horrible things competing for our attention through the same app or browser window. The documentary itself is competently made, with a propulsive mixture of likable cat owners, Internet historians, cat footage, photos and screen captures. Still, as I stroked my cat (an unremarkable tabby with no special skills except being a cat–don’t expect a picture of her on any social media any time soon), I ended up thinking that #cats_the_mewvie could become an exhibit in another kind of documentary, one about our relationship with the Internet that, clearly, we still don’t have the tools or perspective to tackle yet.

Goldeneye (1995)

Goldeneye (1995)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(Second Viewing, On Cable TV, September 2019) After the six-year hiatus that followed the disappointing Licence to Kill, Bond is back with Goldeneye, an exemplary return to form for the series with a new creative team, new lead actor (Pierce Brosnan), new setting, new attitude and an impressive mixture of Bond formula and self-awareness about said formula. From a twenty-first century perspective, the opening flashforward is a useful reminder that the Soviet Union crumbled to pieces in between the previous film and this one, posing a rather vexing problem for a series that had started relying on rogue Soviet antagonists as a substitute to the original SPECTRE. But the moviemaking world also changed between 1989 and 1995: After a spirited opening sequence, good credits show off the series’ new ability to use CGI as a creative assistance, reminding us of Lenin’s statues being torn down and Bond’s usual motifs. What’s perhaps most impressive about Goldeneye is that it manages to return to the formula (complete with a better-than-average villain who’s the equal of Bond, a villainous lair, over-the-top action sequences, and a top-notch dark Bond girl) while also being aware enough of the formula to make it feel fun again. In between lapidary lines such as “I might as well ask you for the vodka martinis that have silenced the screams of all the men you’ve killed … or if you find forgiveness in the arms of all those willing women, for all the dead ones you failed to protect,” we get a still-exhilarating tank chase that destroys part of St. Petersburg and an evil lair underneath the Arecibo observatory. Famke Janssen gets a Bond Hall of Fame mention as one of the most dangerous Bond Girls in the franchise, while Sean Bean portrays the kind of evenly matched villain that makes the better Bond movies so much fun. Where Goldeneye has lost a bit of its lustre since 1995 is in its self-brooding rumination about whether Bond is relevant to its current era—twenty-five years later, we know he is and will forever remain so. Nonetheless, at the time, it was a valid question as the franchise reset itself. The later Brosnan follow-ups wouldn’t feel as fresh (although Brosnan himself is a good combination of Bond’s better traits, with added consideration for his female partners), and would drive the series in increased silliness as it went on. Still, Goldeneye does remain as a remarkable freshening up of the franchise. The mid-to-late 1990s were a wonderful time for action movies, and Goldeneye was in near-perfect synch with the mood of the time.

Licence to Kill (1989)

Licence to Kill (1989)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(Second Viewing Perhaps, On Cable TV, September 2019) I could have sworn that I had seen Licence to Kill once on TV in the early nineties, perhaps distractingly, but now that I have seen it, I’m not so sure — Unlike most of the other Bond movies that left deep impressions, this once felt almost brand new. Of course, it also felt far more generic than the others. The Timothy Dalton years were weird ones for the Bond franchise — The last of an era for many of the earliest collaborators of the franchise, but also a reset away from the silliness of the Moore movies and a harbinger of far darker interpretations of the character. Dalton was a more serious Bond, a more violent one as well, and Licence to Kill is often surprising in how it portrays him as a cold-blooded revenge instrument, going after a drug kingpin for maiming friend Felix Leiter and killing Leiter’s bride. Alas, for much of its duration Licence to Kill feels like a very ordinary 1980s American action revenge film with some familiar names sprinkled in — A Chuck Norris film featuring the Bond theme, Desmond Llewellyn hamming it up as Q and a decent budget for stunts. Per Bond standards, we’re stuck away from espionage and far too long in a murky narcotraficante story that would have been a subplot in other Bond films. (There’s a thirty-second intersection with Hong Kong policing, but that’s it for a film focused only on the Florida Keys and Mexico playing a renamed Panama.) The Bond Girls are not bad (Talisa Soto is beautiful but doesn’t have much to do — while Carey Lowell is plainer but has the plum action role.) but their role marks a noticeable change (for the better) from the usual Bond formula — They even both survive at the end! Heck, even Wayne Newton shows up playing a TV preacher caricature, not to mention an early role for Benicio del Toro as a menacing thug. This off-brand direction for the movie meant that it didn’t do particularly well with audiences or reviewers at the time — After Licence to Kill, the Bond series underwent its longest eclipse until 1995’s revitalized Goldeneye. Of course, in hindsight, Dalton’s run doesn’t seem as bad today, sandwiched between the debonair silliness of both Moore and Brosnan, and its more serious tone prefigures Craig’s tenure. Still, let’s not praise Licence to Kill as an overlooked gem: It’s surprisingly dull for much of its duration, only showing signs of life in action sequences and a particularly intricate action climax featuring a lot of moving parts and classically unbelievable Bond stunts. (The trailer-tractor side-driving is great; the wheelie not so much.) It’s late in its third act that Licence to Kill finally regains the panache of the Bond movie — Too late to be completely satisfying, but at least enough to avoid being a complete let-down. No wonder the series took a six-year break after that, coming back with a new headliner.

Hot Millions (1968)

Hot Millions (1968)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, September 2019) I started watching Hot Millions for the dumbest of reasons — The film’s log-line mentioned something about computers, and as an IT professional I’ve developed something of an interest in the depiction of computers in movies. Of course, this is a bit of a bait-and-switch: Hot Millions isn’t about computers as much as it’s a comic caper about an embezzler updating his methods to take on the computer age as represented by the machine at his new workplace. Peter Ustinov is progressively likable as the criminal mastermind, but part of the spotlight also goes to a surprisingly young (and redheaded) Maggie Smith as a love interest who turns out to be a mastermind in her own right. Come for the computer, stay for the laughs—while amiable for most of its duration, Hot Millions does reach its comic streak late in the film with a surprise revelation that makes everything funnier. Otherwise, it’s a decent but not overwhelming film, cute enough to be likable even today, but not one that we’d call a classic for any reason. Still, that’s good enough.

The Power (1968)

The Power (1968)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, September 2019) It just takes a few moments in producer George Pal’s The Power, as the title pulses in unison with a heartbeat, to realize that we’re headed into weird science-fiction thriller territory. The strangeness soon intensifies as a government man walks into a respectable-looking laboratory in which human endurance tests push volunteers to their frontiers of pain … for space science! (This is unnerving, but never actually portrayed as evil. Nor is our sadistic scientist portrayed as anything but the story’s hero. And you won’t believe the set design. But let’s move on.)  But for sheer plotting contrivances, wait a few minutes as a conference begins and an overly dramatic scientist states that a questionnaire has revealed the existence of a super-powered human sitting around the table. Even a convincing demonstration of power doesn’t bring the audience closer to guessing who’s the superhuman. Of course, this wouldn’t be a horror/SF hybrid without superpowers being used for evil, and soon the nature of reality takes a turn (in a rather charming late-1960s way) as the bodies start piling up. I shouldn’t be too hard on the story, which is adapted from a Frank M. Robinson genre SF novel. But this little-known movie adaptation takes things in uncanny directions, with eerie moments sandwiched between inelegant exposition and classic suspense movie thrills. It doesn’t make a shred of sense (why would a super-smart person, even evil, let himself be detected, let alone go on increasingly baroque ways of killing off everyone around him?) but there are a few good moments along the way. Heck, we even get to attend a swinging sixties party in between the chills and thrills. And ho boy, what about that cimbalom score. A surprisingly normal-looking George Hamilton (by later super-suntanned standards) stars as a dashing scientist, with some assistance from bouffant-coiffed Susanne Pleshette at a scientist used as love interest and a dapper-thin Michael Rennie as a government agent. There are dozens of ways The Power could have been made differently—funnier, scarier, smarter, more believable. But none of those more restrained way would have had the dash of craziness that the result does. The last few minutes are an audibly delightful mixture of the entire film’s highlights mixed with proto-psychedelic imagery and a plot twist that explains a few things. Good movie? Not really. Worth a look? Almost certainly … but you must expect some weird stuff by late-1960s MGM standards—it’s no accident this one landed in 1968, just as Hollywood was beginning to stretch its muscles in terms of what it could be doing outside the constraints of traditional filmmaking.

Made in Paris (1966)

Made in Paris (1966)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, September 2019) Those who maintain that movie musicals are about style more than actually singing and dancing should be comforted by Made in Paris, a nearly obscure mid-1960s MGM film that has a minimal amount of music and dance, but pretty much the same attitude shared by the musical genre. The messy script has our New York-based heroine heading off to Paris to be pursued by three suitors, only to end unconvincingly not with the devastatingly charming French fashion designer, nor the cynical American journalist, but her boss (whom she’d previously bashed over the head with a frying pan after him getting a bit handsy) having crossed the Atlantic to win her back. I’m spoiling the ending because it’s best to be prepared for its unsatisfying nature, but also to make the point that the best reason to watch the film is Ann-Margret’s bubbly performance as a feisty redhead—it’s as is Amy Adams or Isla Fisher had travelled in time to end up in a cute 1960s musical with go-go dancing and enough haute couture to make any gal cry. Playing off no less than Louis Jourdan, Richard Crenna and Chad Everett, Ann-Margret is a redheaded tornado of joy here, and the film is an absolute must-see to anyone already charmed by her leading role in Viva Las Vegas and other movies of the period. Made in Paris is clunky, but she’s quite wonderful in the middle of it all, and she compensates for many other missteps.

State of the Union (1948)

State of the Union (1948)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, September 2019) The main draw for State of the Union is that it’s another Tracy/Hepburn pairing. There’s a good reason why it’s not usually considered one of the most popular of their films, though: as a Frank Capra political drama featuring both of them as an estranged, nearly divorced couple, it doesn’t have the feel-good comic legacy than many of their movies do—except for Sea of Grass or Keeper of the Flame, which I like but are this close to downbeat.  The chosen tone for most of the film isn’t the kind of stuff that makes for fond memories. If you’re familiar with other Frank Capra movies delving into American politics, you can already see the shape of the plot as a down-to-earth businessman is convinced to run for president by his insanely ambitious girlfriend (Angela Lansbury, in a surprisingly detestable role that prefigures her turn in The Manchurian Candidate). Of course, our hero will see the light of American democracy and send the vultures away. Still, the fun of the movie is getting there, the political aligning with the personal as Spencer Tracy rediscovers his morals and boots the bad girlfriend away in order to reconcile with the virtuous Katharine Hepburn. That’s how it goes, and even knowing it doesn’t tarnish the heartfelt way the film makes his point. American politics circa 2019 aren’t exactly the purest, warmest, incorruptible they’ve ever been—and it’s at times like these that movies such as State of the Union can remind us of some good old-fashioned basic values. Now that we’ve established that political junkies will like the film’s timeless message, what about Tracy/Hepburn shippers? Well, State of the Union is average when it comes to the romance—Hepburn doesn’t come in until the second act, and while the dramatic arc of reconciliation does offer something different from their other movies, it’s not quite the fizzy feel-good material of their highlights. The film does have its comic moments, but it’s far more interested in its dramatic points. As a viewer, its success will depend on whether you like Capra’s straightforward and sentimental paean to democratic ideals. I happen to like it a lot, but I can see the rough spots during which the film gets overtly preachy—even if I happen to agree.

Le dernier métro [The Last Metro] (1980)

Le dernier métro [The Last Metro] (1980)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, September 2019) Distinctive for being one of writer-director François Truffaut’s last movies, Le dernier metro takes us backstage in Nazi-occupied Paris, as the story draws a love triangle between a theatrical actor who moonlights as a Resistance member, his opposite leading lady who owns the theatre, and her Jewish husband hiding underneath the stage. Executed with clever period detail, Le dernier métro borrows from theatrical lore, Nazi occupation atmosphere and romantic suspense to deliver a film that’s as rich as it’s long at 131 minutes. Featuring no less than Catherine Deneuve and Gérard Depardieu at their youngish peaks, feeling as if it misses an entire third act, the film culminates in a scene that straddles dreams and the theatrical stage, with a lack of a dramatic finale that weirdly plays in the film’s favour. Le dernier métro may not be one of Truffaut’s top-tier film, but it’s good enough to be worth a look, knowing that it’s not going to play out conventionally.

Eating Raoul (1982)

Eating Raoul (1982)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, September 2019) Dark comedy is a tricky balance of elements, and for every dark comedy I liked, I can name you two others I didn’t—it takes a lot of skill to balance the grimness with the laughs, and many people who try only sound like complete psychopaths at the end of the process. But the alchemy holds in Eating Raoul, as singular a film as it’s possible to image. Writer-director Paul Bartel not only cooked up the script and made it happen, he also stars as half of the couple that are the film’s protagonists: Intelligent, likable, off-beat, asexual, poor and amoral, they eventually cook up a scheme to kill off “rich perverts” by posing as sex workers and luring marks to their deaths. The scheme soon spins out of control, but the joke of the film is that its eccentric characters are the heroes of the story, and no temporary disagreement is going to tear them apart. It goes all the way to the dark extreme suggested by the title, but somehow never loses its verve or its utterly deadpan humour (a more appropriate expression than most here—there’s even a joke about having separate frying pans for murder and for cooking). It’s remarkable that the film remains funny without being cloyingly comic: this is a film made for a specific audience that can learn to get the jokes rather than have them explained to them. Much of the credit for the film’s success goes to Bartel as a performer—overweight, balding, not all that photogenic, but likable all the less—and the pinup-worthy Mary Woronov as his partner in crime. On paper, Eating Raoul sounds like a repulsive mess—but on-screen, it quietly works wonders. It’s quite an achievement—and a terrific film as well.

Ice Station Zebra (1968)

Ice Station Zebra (1968)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, September 2019) Some movies pass into legend solely based on their fandom, and so one of the most interesting facts about Ice Station Zebra is how it was billionaire Howard Hugues’s favourite movie when he was in his reclusive phase—so much so that he took advantage of owning a local TV station by calling them to request that the film be shown in a loop all night long. (Later, he set himself up a private movie theatre and reportedly ran the film 150 times in the final months before his death.) Crazily enough, you can see in the film some of what may have attracted him to it. Adapted from an Alistair MacLean novel, Ice Station Zebra could justifiably be called a forerunner of the modern techno-thriller genre: Predicated on a high-tech plot device (a top-secret capsule from a satellite having crash-landed in the Arctic) and bolstered by good old-fashioned cold-war thriller elements (Americans vs. the Soviets, racing in submarines to retrieve the capsule), it blends the environmental hazards of polar conditions with human traitors and time-ticking suspense. It’s a high-octane thriller even by modern standards, and having a cast of big names (Rock Hudson, Ernest Borgnine and Patrick McGoohan) as headliners only helps. Shot in luscious 70 mm with then-terrific special effects, there’s a crispness to the cinematography (even on TV!) that does betray is studio-bound production. It’s hard to avoid thinking that if Howard Hugues had stayed in the movie business without going crazy, he probably would have gravitated to engineering-heavy big-thrill films such as Ice Station Zebra. Would an elderly Hugues have enjoyed things like The Hunt for Red October? Almost certainly. And while the movie will never attract as famous a fan again, you can have a look and see what the fuss was about.