Lo zar dell'Alaska

Another Edna Ferber saga about the largest state of the union ; she did the same for Texas .Two giants. But whereas "giant" sprawled over three hours , "ice palace " moves at the speed of sound and gives the filling of watching a digest,sometimes even an interminable trailer ; one moves from generation to generation in a jet plane;time moves so fast that the plot suffers accordingly.

Burton is the equivalent of Dean ,a self-made man (though he's helped by his father-in-law ) who becomes a tycoon via overfishing and unfair competition ; like Jett ,he's a hateful racist who does not like the half-breed (remember the scene of the Mexican wife in the beauty parlor ).

Robert Ryan portrays the liberal hero ,but your belief has to be suspended if you are to believe in his political career :from humble trapper to the White House, in such a small time, ( the facile trick of the newspapers headlines ) ; And pregnant Shirley Knight crossing the icy territories on a sleigh when she's expecting her baby any day now is beyond belief !

But there's a compensation :you don't have time to get bored ,and if you like melodramatic family saga ,you"ll get something out of it. What about a miniseries(and not a remake) which would do Ferber more justice?

I'd never heard of this Edna Ferber saga, but it was very interesting to watch. In the rare setting of Alaska, this movie features glaciers, eskimos, fishing canneries, and beautiful fur coats. It also tackles impending statehood, since it's a period piece. But more importantly, it has every element of a great soapy drama: jealousy, friendship, love triangles, family feuds, scandal, star-crossed lovers, betrayal, and tragedy.

The two leads of the film are Robert Ryan and Richard Burton, and they meet in an unlikely situation. One falls out of a fishing boat and the other saves his life. That very important act binds them together for the next few decades. What a great part for Robert Ryan! He made a career out of playing mean villains, even more so than Richard Widmark, but in Ice Palace, he's not the bad guy. Richard Burton is the bad guy, and he's so mean! He's so despicable, unless you really love him, it'll be hard to forgive him in later movies.

The age makeup in this saga is quite impressive. In addition to gray hair, Carolyn Jones is given a matronly body suit and crinkly wrinkles around her eyes. Richard Burton has pale makeup on his face to make him look wrinkled and worn, as well as a stooped posture. Robert Ryan, the oldest in real life of the three, looks fantastic in his gray wig; age becomes him! If you want to see two good-looking guys, great performances, and a heart-tugging story, all draped in majestic white snow, check out Ice Palace.

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.

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.