Les aventuriers

I like this movie due to the fact it celebrates the statehood of Alaska and it features Richard Burton pre Cleopatra when he was a solid journeyman Actor before all the hype of the Taylor/Burton affair. Vincent Sherman who made many fine films at Warner Bros. directs this film and it is a very easy going picture with great photography. Sherman did fine work at WB (and is noted for his relationships -at different times with feuding divas Joan Crawford and the Queen of the Lot Bette Davis)

Am also a fan of the Warner Bros stock company of the 1960's and several players of that group are cast here including the fine actor Ray Danton, and the lovely Diane McBain. Both Danton and McBain were groomed for stardom and Warners kept both busy in both movies and TV. Luscious Diane McBain was so beautiful but got lost at WB standing behind glamour girls Natalie Wood, and Connie Stevens. Warners would shunt their stock players between various TV shows and movies filming on the lot. There is a great picture which I wish someone would find that showed J L Warner with the dozens of players under contract at the time shot on the back lot: Troy Donahue, Connie Stevens, Edd Byrnes, Roger Smith, Peter Brown, Chad Everett, Dorothy Provine, Tony Eisley, Gary Vinson, Diane McBain, Ty Hardin et al, names that conjure up wonderful memories of a bygone era)

Is "Ice Palace" a great movie? no! Is it enjoyable to watch? Yes!

Alaskan melodrama in which Richard Burton rises from unemployment to cannery mogul, getting everything he wants through ruthless determination. Carolyn Jones is the other side of the coin, a woman who fails through indetermination to get anything she wants out of life - including Burton.

It's another Edna Ferber novel about industrial pioneers with an underlying environmental message (the devastation of fish stocks). It's unappealing and humourless, with Burton laying it on too thick, and the drama driven by unpleasant people finding excuses to get on each others' nerves.

Then (like Ferber's Giant) it starts to creak across generations with lots of unconvincing aging and new characters appearing late in the film we are surprised to have to care about. Finally, just to ratchet up the excitement, it gets all political.

Watching pack-ice breaking up would be more satisfying.

The growing tension between Richard Burton and Robert Ryan is amazing. Both actors were as serious, driven, righteous (in their own minds), and caring as the other. All performances were believable and interesting. The change from generations to generation was seamless. And character change melded nicely with Ryan and Burton. Carolyn Jones however did not impress me as much as she did in the beginning. She somehow lost her luster as the film seemed to continue without her. Strangely this also was her role through the duration of the film. And I felt she seemed to be going through the motions towards the end. Just my opinion. I also found the characters of Christopher and Grace charming at first and utterly brainless towards the end. You have to see it and the circumstances to believe it. The innocent bliss that leads them throughout the film culminates. To mention Jim Buckus, his performance was quite an agitation to most every event in the film due to his characters business interests. Believable even if you still see him as Mr Howell! LOL! Four years later, character development, who can say, Recommended if you looking for a (mini) epic that might just keep your interest.

I'm keeping my copy!

Otherwise outstanding performances

Another cinematic weakness of mine has been the filming of Edna Ferber's stories. Here work adapts so well to the cinema I think it's impossible to make a bad movie of her work.

Ice Palace is always given short shrift when it is viewed in comparison to Showboat, Cimarron, and most importantly Giant. Actually it is Giant that Ice Palace seems to have the most in common with. Two men grow wealthier during the history of the area's growth and are changed by their love for the same woman. Carolyn Jones had quite an effect on the two men panting after her, the same as Elizabeth Taylor did to Rock Hudson and James Dean.

I viewed Ice Palace again after seeing it many years ago and it is as good as I remembered it the first time. Two fine portrayals of rival empire builders are given by Richard Burton and Robert Ryan. You can feel the hatred they have for each other come crackling right out of the TV screen as on the big screen. Carolyn Jones as she ages from comely young Scotch lassie to matronly spinster because she won't commit to either man, makes you forget her as Morticia Adams.

If Ice Palace has a weakness it's in the direction. I think if George Stevens had done this one it would have been a cinema classic like Giant is. Still Ice Palace is a fine film that is often overlooked in retrospectives of either Richard Burton or Robert Ryan.

... based on the Edna Ferber novel. It's the multi-generational story of two men, Zeb Kennedy (Richard Burton) and Thor Storm (Robert Ryan), who begin as friends and fishermen in Alaska during the years after WWI. When they both fall for the same woman (Carolyn Jones), the two split, with Zeb becoming a bitter but wealthy cannery magnate, while bitter but motivated Thor fights for Alaskan rights and eventually statehood. Their children and grandchildren also grow to adulthood against this backdrop.

The novel was a big hit, although critics thought it was bad. Its success is credited with helping Alaska become a state in '59. The movie is a big, ponderous bore, stretching an interminable 143 minutes, with Burton and Ryan trying to out-scowl each other. A bear attack looks very silly, with a guy in an obvious bear costume stomping around an unconvincing snowy forest set. This was Diane McBain's debut, as well as the credited movie debut of 22-year-old George Takei, playing a Chinese immigrant friend and servant to Burton. At one point, Takei's character is supposed to be frantic, and he lapses into his native "Chinese" language, but it's hilariously apparent that the Japanese-descended Takei is just spouting gibberish.