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.

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Icarus File No. 24: Express to Terror (dir by Dan Curtis)

Posted on October 1, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The year was 1979 and Fred Silverman, the president of NBC, had an idea.

How about a television series in which each week’s episode would depict a different group of passengers going on a trip? The passengers would all be dealing with their own stories, some of which would be dramatic and some of which would be humorous. With any luck, some of them might even fall in love over the course of their journey!

To keep the audience interested, the show would also feature a cast of regular characters, the crew. Edward Andrews would play the captain, a sensible and by-the-book type. Robert Alda played Doc, the doctor who was also a bon vivant. Patrick Collins was the goofy purser. Nita Talbot played Rose, the perky director of entertainment. Michael DeLano was the bartender who always had the best advice for the passengers….

Does this sound familiar?

If you think that it sounds like Fred Silverman just ripped off The Love Boat …. well, you’re wrong. The Love Boat took place on a boat. Supertrain took place on a train.

At the time that Supertrain went into production, it was the most expensive television production of all time. Before the pilot film was even shot, NBC had spent ten million dollars on the Supertrain sets. Not only was a fake train built but two models were also constructed for the shots of the train moving through the countryside. At the time, the assumption was that the costs would be easily covered by the money that NBC stood to make from broadcasting the 1980 Summer Olympics. Unfortunately, Jimmy Carter decided that the U.S. would be boycotting the Olympics as a way to protest Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan. The only thing that kept NBC from going bankrupt was that the BBC was apparently run by someone even more incompetent than Fred Silverman. The BBC paid $25,oo per episode for the rights to air Supertrain in the UK. Supertrain proved to be such a disaster that the BBC never actually aired the episodes that they had purchased.

1979’s Express to Terror was the pilot to Supertrain. (It was later released in some territories as a stand-alone film.) Directed by horror impresario Dan Curtis (who was also brought in to produce the series), Express to Terror opens with an apparently drunk Keenan Wynn playing the role of railway baron Winfield Root. Winfield loudly announces to a group of nervous investors that he has created ” an atom-powered steam turbine machine capable of crossing this country in 36 hours!” A few months later, Supertrain sets off from New York to Los Angeles.

The main thing that one notices about the train is that it’s incredibly tacky. For all the money that Winfield Root (not to mention NBC) poured into the thing, it looks awful. The cabins are bland and also seem to be constantly shaking as the train rumbles over its tracks. Whereas The Love Boat featured glorious shots of passengers enjoying themselves on an open-air deck, Express to Terror features a lot of shots of passengers trying to squeeze their way through narrow and crowded hallways. There’s a disco car, which sounds like fun but actually looks like a prom being held in a locker room. There’s a swimming pool but you can’t really lay out by it because it’s on a train. Winfield is among the passengers and he continually refers to the train as being “Supertrain” in conversation, which just sounds dumb. “The next person who stops Supertrain,” he announces “will be walking to L.A!”

The main drama features Steve Lawrence as Mike Post, a Hollywood agent with a gambling problem who thinks that someone on the train is trying to kill him. Actually, the assassin is after a different Mike Post (Don Stroud) but that Mike Post is a criminal who, after entering the witness protection program, changed his name to Jack Fisk. The criminal Post is hoping that the agent Post will be killed by mistake. The criminal Mike Post has a girlfriend named Cindy (Char Fontane) who falls in love with the agent Mike Post. Fred Williamson appears as a football player-turned-assassin. George Hamilton plays a Hollywood executive. Don Meredith is the alcoholic best friend of the agent Mike Post. Stella Stevens is on the train as a diva. So is Vicki Lawrence, playing a naive innocent.

Express to Terror tries to mix comedy and drama but it doesn’t really work because the “Good” Mike Post doesn’t really seem to be worth all the trouble. Steve Lawrence gives a mind-numbingly bad performance in the role and, as a result, “Good” Mike Post really isn’t any more sympathetic than “Bad” Mike Post. The main problem is that “Good” Mike Post comes across as being a coward and there’s only so much time that you can watch a coward act cowardly before you lose sympathy for him. Being scared is one thing. Being so dumb that accidentally gets your fingerprints on a knife that’s just been used to kill a man is another thing.

As for the members of the crew — the captain, the doctor, the bartender, and such, they take a back seat to the drama of the two Mike Posts. It’s a bit odd because no one on the train — not even Winfield Root — seems to be that upset by the fact that one of their passengers is murdered while the train is going through a tunnel. You would think that everyone would be worried about the future of Supertrain at that point. A murder is not good for publicity but Winfield Root is oddly unconcerned about it. I swear, light rail people are almost as heartless as bicyclists!

Of course, the worst thing about Express to Terror is that it promises terror but it doesn’t deliver. When I see a the word “terror” in a film directed by Dan Curtis, I expect a little terror! Other than Steve Lawrence’s overacting, there really wasn’t anything particularly terrifying about Express to Terror.

As for Supertrain, it ran for nine episodes and was promptly canceled. Fred Silverman left NBC and spent the rest of his career as an independent producer. Supertrain’s tracks got too close to the sun and they nearly took down a network.

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A Movie A Day #183: No Code of Conduct (1998, directed by David Lee…sorry, Bret Michaels)

Posted on July 10, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

From the strange period of time in which Charlie Sheen wanted people to call him Charles, comes this generic action movie.

Detective Jake Peterson (Charles Sheen) is a loser. Even though his father (Martin Sheen) is the chief of police, Jake is so bad at his job that he has been assigned to work in the evidence locker. His wife (Meredith Salenger) is always yelling at him for being a neglectful father. The only person who likes Jake is his partner (Mark Dascasos, who is wasted) and partner’s never live for long in cop movies. When Jake discovers that evil businessman Julian Disanto (Ron Masak) is plotting to smuggle Mexican heroin into Arizona, he has a chance for redemption but it will not be easy because Disanto is not only working with a corrupt DEA agent (Paul Gleason, of course) but he also has a band of psychotic henchmen.

This predictable and not very exciting action film is interesting for two reasons. First of all, it was directed by the poor man’s David Lee Roth, Bret Michaels. At the time, the future star of Rock of Love and Celebrity Apprentice winner was best known for being the lead singer of the most boring hair metal band of the 80s, Poison. It is always interesting when someone who found fame as something other than a filmmaker tries his hand at directing. Sometimes, the results can be surprisingly good and sometimes, the result is No Code For Conduct. Michaels and Sheen (who co-wrote the script) may have been trying to pull off an homage to the action films of their youth but No Code For Conduct has more in common with the work of Uwe Boll than the work of William Friedkin.

The other interesting thing about No Code for Conduct is that, even though “Charles” and Martin are top-billed, it is actually a four Sheen/Estevez movie. Renee Estevez briefly appears as a cop while Martin’s brother, Joe Estevez, is in charge of the police motor pool. If No Code For Conduct is an act-off between the members of the Sheen/Estevez clan, Joe emerges as the clear winner. Charlie does his wide-eyed intense thing. Martin goes through the movie with a “the shit I do for my son” air of resignation. Renee is not around long enough to make an impression. But Joe?

Joe Estevez is the man!

Joe Estevez, the only Estevez that matters

The Daily Grindhouse: Laserblast (dir. by Michael Rae)

Posted on October 11, 2010 by Arleigh

The latest pick from Grindhouse of the Day will be from the sci-fi genre and this one I remember clearly as I saw it several times on one of those UHF channels that showed cheap sci-fi and horror flicks. This particular grindhouse pick made a major impression in my preteen mind due to the awesome laserblast weapon which gave the flick its title. Yes, the latest grindhouse pick is literally titled, Laserblast.

It was released in 1978 and I’d hazard a guess and say it was part of the cheap, B-movie craze that tried to capitalize on the megasuccess of Star Wars. This sci-fi grindhouse was awesome when I first saw it as an 8-year old but now I look at it and think to myself, “This thing is so awful that it’s gone beyond any level of awfulness and come out the other side as some sort of classic.” It’s still quite awful, but even now it still entertains even if not the same reasons as when it was first seen. I can understand why the MST3K guys over at Comedy Central picked on it.

The flick had a late 70’s, San Fernando Valley porn sheen to it, but minus all the stuff which made those flicks must-see. The special effects were rudimentary, though I will say that the stop-motion animation for the aliens who hunted down the people who got corrupted by the laserblaster were quite good for such a low-budget. If I had to tell someone two reasons why this should be seen at least once its for the aliens and the awesome cheesiness of the laserblaster.

This flick has the distinction of being director Michael Rae’s only film. He hasn’t made a film since. It would seem he gave it all to this single one. It’s also notable for being the first major work for composer Joel Goldsmith (son of renowned film composer Jerry Goldsmith) who would continue later in his career to composing the soundtrack to sci-fi tv series and major videogame franchises.