Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

I don't think this is a very good film.There are a lot of iffy accents. An all star cast don't seem to have any enthusiasm. Donald Sutherland puts in just about the worst performance I have ever seen from him. He talks in a monotonous drawl and just seems bored with the whole thing.There is some action but it isn't very exciting and the whole film seems gloomy and grey with no real spark.As I said the cast don't look like they really want to be there and appear to be going through the motions.I haven't read the book so not sure if the film is like it or not but if the book is as poor as the film then I wonder why they bothered to make it.An all star cast ought to have meant a better film but this is definitely not very good in my opinion.

German scientist Otto Gerran (Richard Widmark) leads an expedition to icy Bear Island - which was also a base for Nazi U-boats in WWII - for some kind of environmental research. Included in the group are fellow scientist Frank Lansing (Donald Sutherland), nurse Heddi Lindquist (Vanessa Redgrave), Russian Lechinski (Christopher Lee) and boat captain Smithy (Lloyd Bridges) among others. When they arrive at the titular location, the group discovers one of the three folks stationed there has gone missing. Before you can say TEN LITTLE INDIANS, folks start getting offed in an effort to hide the island's secret. This is a pretty enjoyable action-mystery adaptation of Alistair MacLean's snowbound novel. The cast is all game, which is good as this must have been a hell of a production to shoot as 70% of it looks shot on location (Alaska and Canada). Director Don Sharp keeps things moving fast and, while you'll probably solve most of the mystery early on, there are still some nice twists. The production is nicely mounted, with great sets and some nice Bond-esquire snow chases. One great scene has Sutherland discovering a German U-boat and he finds the dead crew aboard it, shackled to their posts. One interesting thing my friend who sent this to me pointed out is that this totally has a vibe of John Carpenter's THE THING. Now, of course, THE THING is a remake but I'd wager that film's screenwriter Bill Lancaster or John Carpenter saw this before setting about their version. The opening - where a lone guy runs across a snow-covered plain while being chased by a snowboat - sounds exactly like the opening of Carpenter's film. Look for Bruce Greenwood in his first big screen roll as Tommy the Technician, sporting an epic beard.

I don't know this movie. I was looking it up because I enjoyed the book. I'm writing, because I do think that OCT, who gave a VERY negative review of the movie, damaged his/her credibility when he/she said that Alistair MacLean was out-of-print. Hey Oct, go to Amazon.com, do a search, type in the word "Alistair" and see if Alistair MacLean isn't the first option that pops up. Do you just pull "stuff" out of thin air or do you think a little and maybe do a little research first? I was incredulous of your lampooning of each and every member of the cast. These are solid actors... so I was questioning your motives. Then I flashed back to that NONSENSE about Alistair MacLean being out-of-print and realized that YOU should out-of-print.

I've read all of Alistair MacLean's novels, most of them multiple times...this was almost as bad as the job they did on ICE STATION ZEBRA...the musical score was noisy and sounded as if it had been recorded on a battery-operated cassette tape recorder, and what a waste of some great actors and actresses...my main problem with the film is how disjointed it is from scene to scene...one minute people are stranded on a glacier, the next they are driving into town...and how did those two Hitler-youth Nazis get all that stuff (I'll let you find out "what stuff?") up that narrow shaft?! Even my dog wouldn't believe it. Believe this: the novel is better. Films that MacLean wrote the screenplay for are much truer to the original story lines. Fortunately, this film did not end the careers of Regrave, Sutherland, Bridges, and Widmark...