I held off on watching this one and I can't remember why. As soon as I finished this film, I knew why. My instinct told me this was a flop. I should listen to myself more often.
I think it was some time last year I watched a film called "Rituals". It had Lawrence Dane in it, just like in this one, and I decided to watch the special features within that disc. He mentions in an interview very briefly that Richard Widmark complained constantly throughout this entire film. I assumed that was just Widmark being a fairly big star of his day being just that....a star. After I watched I knew why he was complaining. Bad Script, Super Cold temperatures and probably knowing he was involved in a turkey...he wasn't too pleased.
I've never read the novel this was based on but the idea in itself isn't a bad one. The problem is the plausibility of this happening is pretty far fetched. The acting in this isn't that bad really, it's just the lack of any believable dialogue or just too many "quiet" moments it got to be a pretty tedious watch.
There are a few funny moments that come to mind. Right at the end when the entire group at the station sets out to see whats happened to head of the group, they look and see the boat leaving and 1 guy screams..."Smitty". If you've seen this then you'll know that Smitty was played by the Lloyd Bridges character and he was killed off about 3/4 of the way through. Problem is, Smitty is in the harbor, on a boat at least 400 or 500 yards away. How can that guy see that far to see who it was lol. It's ridiculous. There are quite a few scenes where these characters walk around, inside and out, inappropriately addressed for a place at the top of the world. I mean we're talking about sub zero temps and they walk around with some basic jeans and sweaters and maybe some long johns. I don't have to live very far up north of anywhere to know you'd freeze your tail off with what they were wearing.
There were many other "yeah right" scenes but they aren't worth mentioning because they sum up what this film is worth...not a heckuva lot. Save your hours of the day for doing laundry and not thinking you missed out on anything if you missed this one....Trust me...you haven't.
I think it was some time last year I watched a film called "Rituals". It had Lawrence Dane in it, just like in this one, and I decided to watch the special features within that disc. He mentions in an interview very briefly that Richard Widmark complained constantly throughout this entire film. I assumed that was just Widmark being a fairly big star of his day being just that....a star. After I watched I knew why he was complaining. Bad Script, Super Cold temperatures and probably knowing he was involved in a turkey...he wasn't too pleased.
I've never read the novel this was based on but the idea in itself isn't a bad one. The problem is the plausibility of this happening is pretty far fetched. The acting in this isn't that bad really, it's just the lack of any believable dialogue or just too many "quiet" moments it got to be a pretty tedious watch.
There are a few funny moments that come to mind. Right at the end when the entire group at the station sets out to see whats happened to head of the group, they look and see the boat leaving and 1 guy screams..."Smitty". If you've seen this then you'll know that Smitty was played by the Lloyd Bridges character and he was killed off about 3/4 of the way through. Problem is, Smitty is in the harbor, on a boat at least 400 or 500 yards away. How can that guy see that far to see who it was lol. It's ridiculous. There are quite a few scenes where these characters walk around, inside and out, inappropriately addressed for a place at the top of the world. I mean we're talking about sub zero temps and they walk around with some basic jeans and sweaters and maybe some long johns. I don't have to live very far up north of anywhere to know you'd freeze your tail off with what they were wearing.
There were many other "yeah right" scenes but they aren't worth mentioning because they sum up what this film is worth...not a heckuva lot. Save your hours of the day for doing laundry and not thinking you missed out on anything if you missed this one....Trust me...you haven't.