You can see the logic behind a film like Ice Station Zebra. This Cold War thriller from 1968 was supposed to be one of MGM’s biggest films of its year, but sadly went down without even recouping its production budget in theatres.

A look at the individual ingredients suggests a comfortable commercial hit, but for some reason the cooking process resulted in a colossal disappointment. The film was based on a 1963 Alistair MacLean novel; a previous adaptation of his work had resulted in the hugely successful The Guns of Navarone, while another successful MacLean film – Where Eagles Dare – was made concurrently with this one. To direct Ice Station Zebra MGM hired John Sturges, whose successful and acclaimed works included The Magnificent Seven (1960) and The Great Escape (1963). The cast included popular actors including Rock Hudson and Ernest Borgnine. The film was shot on 70mm film, and released in a lavish roadshow edition complete with overture, intermission, and entr’acte.

What Ice Station Zebra demonstrates is that one can have a world class director and a talented cast, but it is all a futile effort if the screenplay does not work.

Commander James Ferraday (Hudson), captain of a US nuclear submarine, is ordered to escort British agent “Mr Jones” (Patrick McGoohan) to a remote arctic weather station. They are soon joined by Russian defector Boris Vaslov (Borgnine) and Marine Captain Anders (Jim Brown). Before long there is sabotage on board that may scuttle the submarine before Ferraday even discovers their true mission.

The core problem with Ice Station Zebra is plot. Or, rather, the core problem is its lack of plot. The film runs two-and-a-half hours in length, and yet very little happens to justify that length. The pace is, sadly, glacial, and the lengthy running time leaves the plot jangling around like loose change in a baggy pocket. The level of momentum is remarkably low. Ferraday is stuck serving a mission he is not allowed to know about, and yet the film fails to ramp up his frustrations. One would think a saboteur among the crew, who almost destroys the entire ship before it reaches the titular Station Zebra, would inspire some form of desperate hunt for the guilty party. Instead things proceed almost as if the traitor wasn’t there.

Any chance of the suspense rising during the film’s second half are lost to poor production standards and the use of a soundstage for the Arctic tundra. It is all terribly unconvincing – particularly some highly suspect model shots of Russian jet fighters.

Rock Hudson is hardly a good option to bring some life to the proceedings. He was always a rather limited actor, and while he is relatively dependable here he is hardly charismatic. Ernest Borgnine spends the whole feature saddled with a ridiculous Russian accent, while Jim Brown – a football star turned serviceable actor – is almost entirely ignored by the screenplay once he arrives.

All of the weight, therefore, falls on poor Patrick McGoohan. He was a wonderfully idiosyncratic performer, with a genuinely inventive turn of phrase, but one star can only do so much. He is a highlight, but he is wasted on all of this. McGoohan was shooting his famous television drama The Prisoner for ITC when Ice Station Zebra was made. He even wrote himself out of one of the episodes (“Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darling”) to accommodate his work on the film. Honestly, I would have preferred him to have done one more episode of The Prisoner. That series was legendary. This film is simply flat-out mediocre.