Ice Station Zebra (1968) on Netflix
G19682h 28mAdventureDramaThriller
Commander James Ferraday sails the nuclear submarine USS Tigerfish under the Arctic ice toward Drift Ice Station Zebra, a British weather station in distress. The rescue hides another mission.
- Netflix3.4/5
- IMDb6.6/1013,128 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes47%
Trailer
Plot summary
US naval Commander Jim Ferrady's next mission is to sail his nuclear submarine, the USS Tigerfish, to the multi-nation polar located weather station Zebra. He is told that the mission, which is concurrently being conducted by the Soviets as well, is under the pretense of saving its crew from something that has killed or is killing them. This situation is true, but the real mission is something else related to the ice station. A civilian Brit with a code name Jones, who will be sailing with him and who he doesn't fully trust, knows the real reason of the mission, but refuses to disclose it, but promises to do so if it risks the lives of the sub's crew. Another on board the sub is anti-Soviet Soviet Boris Vaslov, one of the designers of the station. As Vaslov is a friend of Jones, Ferraday also doesn't fully trust him. Jones, in turn, doesn't fully trust everyone on board, most specifically Captain Leslie Anders, who is leading the command of the marines for the mission. It soon becomes apparent that one of these mistrusts is founded as someone on board is sabotaging the mission, that person who is willing to die and kill everyone aboard the sub. The new concurrent mission is to find the saboteur, and discover for who he is working and their motives.
Cast
- Michael T. Mikleras Lt. Courtney Cartwright
- Joseph Bernardas Dr. Jack Benning
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Ice Station Zebra (1968)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Actor Patrick McGoohan nearly died during filming when he became trapped by the foot in a flooded chamber and had to be freed by a diver; he was simultaneously shooting his TV series The Prisoner and had an episode rewritten to work around the production.
- Howard Hughes' devotion to the film was legendary: during his reclusive years at the Desert Inn in Las Vegas he grew dissatisfied with local station KLAS-TV's programming, so he bought the station and ordered Ice Station Zebra aired repeatedly.
- The U.S. Department of Defense objected that Paddy Chayefsky's original screenplay was "an unfair distortion of military life" that would "damage the reputation of the Navy and its personnel," delaying filming for years until a new script was commissioned.
- MGM actually pulled 2001: A Space Odyssey out of Cinerama theaters specifically to make room for Ice Station Zebra's premiere engagements.
- Ice Station Zebra is named several times in Better Call Saul as the favorite film of Jimmy McGill, who calls his LLC "Ice Station Zebra Associates."
- There were no women at all in the cast of Ice Station Zebra; star Rock Hudson explained it simply: "It was the way Maclean wrote it."
