Guilty Pleasure No. 90: Ice Station Zebra (dir. by John Sturges)

Posted on November 29, 2025 by Arleigh

Ice Station Zebra, directed by John Sturges in 1968, slides into guilty pleasure territory like a submarine slipping under polar ice—full of big Cold War ambitions, shadowy spy games, and submarine peril that tease something epic, but so loaded with pacing hiccups, studio shortcuts, and earnest overreach that it ends up a lopsided, lovably messy ride. Sturges had already cemented his rep with crowd-roaring hits like The Magnificent Seven, where a ragtag posse of gunslingers delivered razor-sharp tension and quotable showdowns, or The Great Escape, a WWII breakout yarn crackling with clever schemes, sweaty escapes, and Steve McQueen’s motorcycle glory. Those films moved like a well-oiled engine, every scene stacking stakes and character beats into unforgettable momentum. By contrast, Ice Station Zebra feels like Sturges chasing that same high-wire ensemble vibe—a U.S. nuclear sub, the USS Tigerfish, barreling toward a trashed Arctic outpost—but bloating into a 148-minute sprawl that swaps tight plotting for endless red-lit corridor glares and withheld mission secrets. It’s not in the same league as his earlier triumphs, lacking their propulsive drive and lived-in grit, yet that very shortfall turns it into quirky comfort viewing for fans who dig flawed ’60s spectacle.

The setup hooks you quick: Commander James Ferraday, Rock Hudson’s square-jawed everyman at the helm, gets tapped for a hush-hush run to Ice Station Zebra after a satellite supposedly carrying spy photos crashes nearby. No full briefing for him, just orders to play it cool while three mystery passengers board—Mr. Jones, a buttoned-up British agent with evasive smirks; Boris Vaslov, Ernest Borgnine’s barrel-chested Russian turncoat oozing fake bonhomie; and Captain Anders, Jim Brown’s steely Marine barking orders over a squad of jarheads. As the Tigerfish dives under thickening ice floes, the sub’s innards come alive with flickering sonar pings, steam-hissing valves, and crewmen hunched over gauges in perpetual sweat. It’s claustrophobic gold at first, the hull creaking like it’s got a bad case of frostbite, echoing the trapped dread Sturges nailed in his POW camp classic but without the same spark of rebellion. Then sabotage strikes—a flooded missile bay, a wild plunge toward crush depth—and fingers start pointing. Who tampered with the ballast? Jones with his locked trunk of gadgets? Vaslov’s too-friendly vodka toasts? The Marines itching for a fight? The scene builds real sweat, divers suiting up in the nick of time, but Sturges lets the fallout drag, turning interrogation into a tea party of suspicions rather than the cutthroat blame game his best films thrived on.

These early stumbles set the tone for a film that’s promising yet perpetually off-kilter, far from the seamless revenge rhythm of The Magnificent Seven‘s dusty trails. Production fingerprints show everywhere: rumors swirl of Navy brass forcing script tweaks to glorify their boats, last-minute casting shifts from bigger names to Hudson, and a roadshow rollout with overture, intermission, and 70mm pomp that screams overambition. The Arctic plunge delivers tense highlights—the sub ramming upward through ice chunks like a whale breaching, sparks flying from shorted panels, crew barking damage reports—but lulls follow with tech jargon dumps and characters circling motives without committing to conflict. Hudson anchors it all with unflappable poise, barking commands like a TV dad in a crisis, but he lacks McQueen’s sly charisma or Yul Brynner’s brooding fire. Borgnine hams it up as Vaslov, his accent flipping from gravelly growl to vaudeville schtick during mess-hall ribbing, while McGoohan brings the sharpest edge as Jones, his dry barbs hinting at deeper layers. Brown’s Anders gets muscle but little nuance, leading a Marine crew that feels like stock tough guys waiting for their cue.

Pushing topside, the flaws bloom into full charm. The ice cap arrival unfolds in sweeping widescreen vistas—endless white expanses, howling gales whipping snow devils—but close-quarters betray the soundstage: actors plodding through “blizzards” in lightweight jackets, no puffing breath in the deep freeze, sets that wobble if you squint. It’s the kind of earnest cheesiness that sinks modern blockbusters but endears this relic, especially when the station siege erupts. Soviets drop from the sky in parachutes like deadly snowflakes, scouring the charred ruins for a buried film capsule packed with NATO missile coords. Americans fan out in white camo, trading potshots amid smoke grenades and collapsing tunnels, loyalties cracking as Vaslov’s true colors flash. Ferraday’s cool bluff seals a three-way stalemate, denying everyone the prize in a nod to mutually assured secrets. Michel Legrand’s score surges here, horns blaring over the chaos like a war drum, giving Sturges’ action chops a late workout. Yet even this payoff sprawls, talky standoffs eating screen time where his peak films would’ve sprinted to the finish.

What seals Ice Station Zebra‘s guilty pleasure status is embracing its dated quirks as features, not bugs—hammy all-male bravado, Cold War jitters turned quaint, plot gaps you could park a destroyer in. Sturges conjures submerged panic and frosty fireworks that nod to his glory days, the sub’s practical effects holding up better than some CGI today, but without the narrative steel of The Great Escape‘s tunnel triumphs or The Magnificent Seven‘s mythic standoffs, it coasts on atmosphere over precision. Clocking 148 minutes, it tests patience with filler like extended sail sequences and coy reveals, yet rewards surrender: grin at Borgnine’s bear hugs masking menace, chuckle at the Navy polish glossing gritty potential, savor the sheer balls of staging Arctic Armageddon on a backlot. Howard Hughes reportedly looped it endlessly in his casino screening rooms, and you get why—it’s hypnotic in its wonkiness, a time capsule of late-’60s Hollywood flexing before New Wave grit crashed the party.

Pop this on a stormy night with cocoa and zero expectations, and Ice Station Zebra shines as cozy flawed fun. Sturges’ touch keeps the chills coming amid the clunkers, delivering submarine squeezes, betrayals under the aurora, and a finale with enough brinkmanship bang to forgive the bloat. It’s no peer to his earlier masterpieces, more a quirky footnote, but that’s the hook: imperfect promise wrapped in icy spectacle, begging a rewatch to spot every goofy grace note. For ’60s thriller buffs, submarine nuts, or anyone needing a break from slick reboots, it’s a frosty, flawed feast worth the dive.

Previous Guilty Pleasures

Film Review: Joe Kidd (dir by John Sturges)

Posted on May 31, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

1972’s Joe Kidd opens with the title character (played by Clint Eastwood) in jail. Joe is a New Mexico rancher and apparently, someone with a long history of getting in trouble with the law. This time, he’s been arrested for poaching and disturbing the peace. Given a choice between a fine and ten days in jail, Joe goes for the ten days. Cowardly Sheriff Mitchell (Gregory Walcott) says he’s going to put Joe to work. Joe Kidd snarls in response.

However, that’s before Luis Chama (John Saxon), a Mexican revolutionary, raids the courthouse and demands that all of his people’s ancestral land be returned to them. Local landowner Frank Harlan (Robert Duvall) forms a posse to track Chama down. Joe says that he has nothing against Chama but that changes once he discovers that Chama raided his ranch and beat up one of his ranchhands. Joe joins the posse but he soon discovers that Harlan and his men are sadists who are more interested in killing Mexicans than actually capturing Chama.

I was actually pretty excited about watching Joe Kidd. Clint Eastwood, Robert Duvall, and John Saxon, three of my favorite actors in the same movie! How couldn’t I be excited? Unfortunately, neither Duvall nor Saxon are at their best in this film. Frank Harlan is a one-dimensional villain and Duvall doesn’t make much of an effort to bring any sort of unexpected nuance to the character. Duvall doesn’t give a bad performance but it’s hard not to feel that Harlan is a character who could have been played by any forty-something actor. It feels like waste to cast such a good actor in such a thin role. (Add to that, I prefer Duvall when he plays a good guy as opposed to when he plays a bad guy.) As for Saxon, this is probably one of his worst performances but his character is also rather underwritten and the film can’t seem to decide if it wants the viewer to be on his side or not. Saxon delivers his lines in an exaggerated Mexican accent that makes it difficult to take Louis Chama seriously. Gregory Sierra would have made a good Louis Chama but Saxon just seems miscast.

Fortunately, Clint Eastwood is always a badass, even in an uneven film like this. Eastwood is at his best in the early scenes, when he’s grouchy and hungover and annoyed at finding himself in the jail. He is believably outraged by Harlan’s tactics and, in typical Eastwood fashion, he delivers every pithy one-liner with just enough style to keep things interesting. That said, Eastwood is let down by a script that never really makes it clear why Joe Kidd stays with the posse once it becomes clear that he’s traveling with a bunch of sociopaths. Joe’s motivations are never really clear. In the end, he seems like he goes through a lot of trouble to protect his farmland and get revenge for one of his ranch hands (who is just beaten up), just to then desert it all once all the shooting is over.

That said, Joe Kidd is a gorgeous film to look at and Joe makes creative use of a steam engine. This isn’t the film to show anyone who isn’t already an Eastwood fan. But, for those of us who are already fans of Clint, it’s enjoyable to watch him snarl, even if it is in a lesser film.

Happy Birthday in heaven to Director John Sturges! 🎉

Posted on January 3, 2025 by Bradley Crain

Director John Sturges was born on January 3rd, 1910. He directed some of my favorite movies, and many of them starred my movie hero, Charles Bronson. The picture above is from 1973’s CHINO!

Charles Bronson’s second role in a film was in Sturges’ THE PEOPLE AGAINST O’HARA from 1951, starring Spencer Tracy. The picture below isn’t a very good picture as Bronson was only in one scene. Can you spot Bronson??

In 1959, Sturges would direct Charles Bronson in NEVER SO FEW, which co-starred Frank Sinatra and Steve McQueen.

Just a year later in 1960, Sturges would direct Bronson and an all star cast that included Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, James Coburn and Robert Vaughn in THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, a remade of the Akira Kurosawa classic THE SEVEN SAMURAI. Bronson’s role as Bernardo O’Reilly is one of the best in the entire film.

John Sturges would direct Charles Bronson again in 1963 in the classic film THE GREAT ESCAPE, which also starred Richard Attenborough, Steve McQueen, James Garner, James Coburn and Donald Pleasence. Charles Bronson drew on his experience in the coal mines of Pennsylvania when he played “The Tunnel King” in the classic World War II film. Charles Bronson is one of the characters who actually escapes, which made me very happy!

John Sturges would direct Charles Bronson one more time in the underrated western from 1973, CHINO (pictured at the top). Sturges was a phenomenal director, and Charles Bronson was in some of his very best work! As Charles Bronson’s biggest fan, Sturges will always be one of my favorite directors!!

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special James Coburn Edition

Posted on August 31, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!

Whether he was appearing in a western, a spy film, a war film, a comedy, or a dark drama, James Coburn was one of the coolest and most underapperciated actors around. He made bad films tolerable and good films even better. Regardless of the role, Coburn brought his own unique style to each and every performance. He was born 92 years ago today in Nebraska so here are just four of the films from his legendary career.

4 Shots From 4 Films

The Magnificent Seven (1960, directed by John Sturges)

In Like Flint (1967, directed by Gordon Douglas)

A Fistful of Dynamite (1971, directed by Sergio Leone)

Affliction (1998, directed by Paul Schrader)

Marooned (1969, directed by John Sturges)

Posted on July 14, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

Imagine The Martian or Apollo 13 without any humor or narrative momentum and you’ve got an idea what Marooned is like.

Three American astronauts (played by Richard Crenna, Gene Hackman, and James Franciscus) are returning to Earth after serving on an experimental space station when the engine to their spacecraft fails. Now stuck in orbit around the Earth, they only have two days before they run out of oxygen. While flight commander Crenna tries to keep everyone calm and make sure that all the proper procedures are followed, Gene Hackman yells at NASA and demands to be rescued.

Down on Earth, the head of NASA (Gregory Peck) says that there’s nothing that can be done. There’s no way to get a rescue mission set up quickly enough to save the lives of the astronauts. Both the President and David Janssen disagree with him. Janssen demands to be sent into space immediately, regardless of the dangers, so that he can bring America’s astronauts home.

Marooned is a painfully slow movie that went into production at the height of the space race and which was released just a few weeks before the first successful moon mission. Because it was made at a time when there were still many who claimed that NASA was a waste of money, the movie goes out of its way to explain that, even though the astronauts are probably going to die in space, NASA is in no way to blame. Richard Crenna absolves NASA of blame after being told that a rescue mission isn’t feasible. Gregory Peck holds a press conference, where he gives a lengthy speech about why space exploration is still important. The movie is very detailed in showing that NASA is staffed by personality-free professionals, which might have boosted confidence in NASA but which also leads to a dull story. You’ll notice that I haven’t referred to anyone in this film by the names of their characters. That’s because their names don’t matter because, other than Gene Hackman and David Janssen, none of them is really distinguished by any sort of identifiable personality. Hackman chews the scenery while Janssen plays another surly character who seems like he has a permanent hangover. I wouldn’t trust Janssen to pilot a spaceship.

Marooned won an Oscar for its Special Effects, which were probably impressive back in 1969 but which are dull by modern standards. Winning that Oscar meant that Marooned would eventually earn the distinction of being the only Oscar winner to be featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000. On MST 3K, it aired under the title Space Travelers, which is a perfectly generic name for a perfectly generic film.

It’s the original THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN- or is it? (United Artists 1960)

Posted on September 22, 2016 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

There’s a large hue and cry about the upcoming remake of THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (and remakes in general) among classic film fans. “How dare they”, it kind of goes, “Why, that’s blasphemy!”. The truth is, Hollywood’s been cannibalizing itself since almost the beginning, and remakes have long been a staple of filmmakers. THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN is a remake of Akira Kurasawa’s Japanese film SEVEN SAMAURI, moved to the American west by producer/director John Sturges . And while quite frankly most remakes can’t hold a candle to the originals, this 1960 action epic can stand on it’s own as one of the great Western adventures.

Sturges assembled a macho cast to tell the tale of bandits terrorizing a small Mexican village, and the seven hired guns who take on the job of defending them. Top billed is Yul Brynner as Chris, the black clad gunslinger who puts together the crew. First among them is

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4 Shots From 4 Films: Charles Bronson Edition

Posted on August 30, 2015 by Arleigh

I think it’s becoming a sort of unofficial tradition to celebrate a particular film legend’s birthday using the 4 Shots From 4 Films series as platform to showcase these individuals best and lesser-known films.

Today, we focus and celebrate what would’ve been the 93rd birthday of one Charles Dennis Buchinsky. That name may not resonate to the csual film fans, but I’m sure his chosen professional moniker will: Charles Bronson.

Charles Bronson was part of that group of actors during the 60’s and 70’s who epitomized the macho and badass personality on the big-screen. Bronson’s legacy has lived on through such classic films as The Magnificent Seven, The Dirty Dozen and Once Upon A Time In America right up to his more lesser-known films such as Hard Times, Telefon and Death Hunt.

4 shots from 4 films

The Magnificent Seven (dir. by John Sturges)

The Dirty Dozen (dir. by Robert Aldrich)

Once Upon A Time In the West (dir. by Sergio Leone)

Death Hunt (dir. by Peter R. Hunt)

Out of the Saddle: John Wayne in MCQ (Warner Bros, 1974)

Posted on August 30, 2015 by gary loggins

John Wayne didn’t get off his horse very often in the latter part of his career. The Duke hadn’t done a non-Western since 1969’s HELLFIGHTERS, but cop pictures were in style in the early 70s due to the success of movies like THE FRENCH CONNECTION and DIRTY HARRY. Wayne was actually offered the part of Dirty Harry Callahan and turned it down. But in 1974, Big John traded in his horse for a Pontiac Firebird in the action packed MCQ, directed by veteran John Sturges (GUNFIGHT AT THE OK CORRAL, THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, THE GREAT ESCAPE).

Wayne plays tough cop Lon McQ, who quits the force to investigate the murder of his former partner. He gets tangled up with drug dealers and corrupt officials, car chases and shootouts. Sound formulaic? It is, but the action scenes make up for a lame script. Duke basically plays the same character he did in most all his films, tough but tender, fair but firm. It’s kind of jarring to see Wayne in his (pretty bad) hairpiece instead of the usual cowboy hat, and tooling around the streets of Seattle in a muscle car rather than the dusty trail on his horse. He’s surrounded by a supporting cast full of familiar faces (Eddie Albert, Diana Muldaur, Colleen Dewhurst, Al Lettieri, David Huttleston, Clu Gulager), all of whom do their best with the clichéd script. MCQ plays like a TV movie of the week, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and fans of 70s action flicks will dig it.

John Wayne only made three more films after MCQ, including another cop movie, BRANNIGAN, and his swan song, 1976’s THE SHOOTIST, before succumbing to cancer in 1979. The Duke made much better movies then MCQ, but for a look at the star without his spurs and six-gun, it’s definitely worth watching.

(This post originally appeared, in slightly altered form, on the 2015 TCM Summer of the Stars Blogathon, hosted by Journeys in Classic Film)

Guilty Pleasure No. 22: Battle Beyond the Stars (dir. by Jimmy T. Murakami)

Posted on August 13, 2014 by Arleigh

Two of my favorite films of all-time happen to be very similar. In fact, one could say that they’re pretty much the same films. I’m talking about Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai and it’s Western-remake by John Sturges, The Magnificent Seven. Kurosawa’s film is one of the greatest films of all-time and it’s no wonder that many have taken the film’s story of the downtrodden hiring a band of misfits, rogues, but still honorable men to help them fight against huge odds.

One such film that tries to add onto Kurosawa film’s legacy was the Roger Corman-produced scifi-adventure film Battle Beyond the Stars. This 1980 film was one of Corman’s many attempts to cash-in on the Star Wars phenomena, but in his usual low-budget style.

For a low-budget scifi film, Battle Beyond the Stars happened to have quite a cast one doesn’t usually see in such productions. While it had such grindhouse and exploitation regulars as John Saxon and Sybil Danning, it also starred the wholesome Richard Thomas from The Waltons and George Peppard (who would later become famous with a new generation as Hannibal Smith of The A-Team). The film would be directed by Jimmy T. Murakami, but from watching the film one could see Corman’s fingerprints all over the production from the script which was pretty lean and cut to the basic outline of Kurosawa’s original film. There’s not much fluff to bog down the pacing of the film.

This film has always been a guilty pleasure of mine because it so resemble Seven Samurai and The Magificent Seven, but adds in it’s own unique style and look to a well-worn and well-trodden plot. It was much later that I found out that James Cameron had a major hand in the special effects work in the film. Think about that for a moment. The self-proclaimed “King of the World” who literally breaks film budget records every time he begins work on a film did FX work on battle Beyond the Stars whose effects budget probably wouldn’t buy a day’s worth of crafts table eating for his most modestly budgeted films.

Lisa Marie always loved to say that grindhouse and exploitation films are some of most honest films out there. There’s no bullshit to what we see on the screen. It’s filmmakers forced to be daring and inventive because the lack of resources forces them to think outside the box. Battle Beyond the Stars might be seen as a mediocre attempt to cash-in on a scifi cultural phenomena, but it does so with a go for broke mentality that makes it such a fun film to watch. It’s not the greatest thing Corman has ever produced and some would even call it a very bad film, but once one looked past it’s rough and flawed surface then one could see a gem in the rough hidden beneath.

Oh, this remake of the remake of the original also happened to star one Robert Vaughn who was one of original Magnificent Seven.