Ice Palace * (1960, Richard Burton, Robert Ryan, Martha Hyer, Carolyn Jones, Jim Backus, and Ray Danton) – Classic Movie Review 13,667

Richard Burton, Robert Ryan, Carolyn Jones and Martha Hyer star in the misbegotten 1960 Technicolor historical drama adventure film Ice Palace, a critical and box office flop.

Director Vincent Sherman’s 1960 Technicolor adventure film Ice Palace stars Richard Burton, Robert Ryan, Martha Hyer, Carolyn Jones, Jim Backus, and Ray Danton.

Richard Burton stars as racist, unscrupulous Zeb Kennedy, who starts a fish trapping and canning business, and clashes with his buddy, critical fisherman Thor Storm (Robert Ryan), in 1920s Alaska, in this boring, over-inflated film of Edna Ferber’s epic novel.

Their battle is personal too: Bridie Ballantyne (Carolyn Jones) is the woman they are both after; she is Ryan’s fiancEe and Burton is married to Martha Hyer.

With an unfocused script, this sprawling, overblown, over-long drama is unpersuasively made by Vincent Sherman, mostly in the Warner Bros studio, which doesn’t look like Alaska, though there is Alaskan location shooting at Juneau, Fairbanks and Petersburg. Filming started in Alaska in August 1959 but ironically there was so little snow that the blizzard scenes were filmed at the Warner studio in Burbank, helping to make the film look artificial and studio bound.

It was a glacial commercial and critical failure, taking $1,650,000 in North America against a budget of $3.5 million. As well as a large fee of $350,000, Ferber was on 15 per cent of the profits for the movie rights, so there went that then. And Ferber’s book was a best seller.

Warner Bros advertised it as ‘THE MOTION PICTURE GIANT OF 1960!’ to remind audiences that Edna Ferber was the author of the source novel of the same studio’s 1956 hit Giant. In 1960, MGM simultaneously produced a remake of yet another Ferber novel, Cimarron.

Cast: Richard Burton, Robert Ryan, Martha Hyer, Carolyn Jones, Jim Backus, Ray Danton, Diane McBain, Karl Swenson, Shirley Knight, Barry Kelley, George Takei, Steve Harris, Sam McDaniel.

Ice Palace is directed by Vincent Sherman, runs 143 minutes, is made and released by Warner Bros, is written by Harry Kleiner, is shot in Technicolor by Joseph F Biroc, is produced by Henry Blanke, is scored by Max Steiner, and is designed by Malcolm Bert.

Edna Ferber wrote her novel in 1958. Alaska became a state in 1959.

Feature film debuts of George Takei and Diane McBain.

Diane McBain (May 18, 1941 – December 21, 2022) 

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,667

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