Ice Palace (1960)

Best movie of this year hands down!

One of my all time favorites.

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

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

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.

This is one of the great movies ever made. I really would love to own it on DVD. I have it on VHS, but the color is fading. Do you know when it will come out on DVD. I recommend this movie to all ages.Anyone who is interested in the history and stories of Alaska will enjoy the story. The actors are Robert Ryan, who is great, Richard Burton, who is always very good, and Carolyn Jones and Marther Hyer who portray their parts perfectly. You are in for a real treat, so grab your popcorn, something to drink, set back and enjoy a great movie, full of entertainment and good acting. To bad that Hollywood does not put out this kind of movies anymore. An era has pasted and that is too bad.

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.

This is a surprisingly little known generational saga based on a novel by Edna Ferber (who also penned "Cimarron".) It spans about 45 years in the lives of a trio of entrepreneurs in Alaska. Burton plays an ex-WWI soldier who isn't given his old job back as the war ends. He makes his way to Alaska where he (after some plot complications) meets up with fisherman Ryan and Ryan's fiancée Jones. From here, the story follows their many trials and tribulations leading up to the statehood of Alaska. There is a TON of story to be told in this film and, though it is long, most vignettes only get touched on and many characters come and go and age so quickly it's sometimes head-spinning. Burton is a thoroughly unsympathetic lead character. All he does is brood and bellow. Ryan is less grating at first, but soon joins in. Jones, though solid, seems to be channelling Bette Davis half the time and her long-suffering role is one like Ms. Davis might have essayed back in her prime at Warner Brothers. Hyer, in a thankless role, pretty much models some nice suits before her big (and hilarious) scene involving a heart attack. Backus does okay as Burton's sidekick. One shocker is witnessing the well-spoken Takei portraying a demeaning, pigeon-English, Chinese servant complete with all the stereotypical traits and insulting "comic relief". It is odd to see Burton sharing screen time with "Mr. Howell" and "Mr. Sulu"! Knight barely appears at all. McBain comes along toward the end to provide a welcome dose of spark and sex appeal. The film is not exactly good, but it is watchable. Several scenes are marred by tacky effects like plastic snow and rear-projection (and in one howler of a scene, an attack by a man in a bear suit!) Also, Burton, who was twelve years YOUNGER than Backus, ages and ages while Backus just goes a little gray. He passes Backus up! Max Steiner provides some nice music. One scene, which seems daring for the time, involves two Eskimo women getting naked under some furs to thaw out a frozen traveller.