I just stumbled across it on Turner Classic Movies.
Why do the guys at ISZ have a refrigerator?
Seriously?
Yes, Patrick McGoohan goes into a hut, and there is a refrigerator right by the front door.
Man, I liked that Alistair MacLean book when I was a kid. No refrigerators int he book, BTW. 
Maybe they were trying to keep something from getting really really cold.
I got nuthin.
By the way I love this movie!
Maybe because they wanted something cold, but not frozen?
For the women? oh, wait. not a comic book movie. right.
Well, the conditions during Ice Station Zebra were extreme. They had suffered a fire, loss of power etc and were living through a blizzard (I remember details from the book better than the movie). Presumably during normal circumstances they would have heating systems in the huts to at least raise the temperatures above 0 degrees Centigrade, and would thus require a refrigerating system for food and/or biological specimens.
Also, from Wikipedia I learn that an average 10 degrees Centigrade temperature is normal in the Arctic in summer.
Alistair MacLean’s “Night Without End” ,however, depicts a research team in the Arctic where the huts ice over on the inside overnight. I suppose it depends on the budget.
This is one of those times the movie was better than the book. Love the scenes of the sub under the ice, they did a good job. Not so good on the Russian fighters.
“We’re on a first name basis here. My name’s ‘Captain.’”
And they had to heat the tractor crankcase with a blow torch to get it warm enough to start. Maybe I depended up MacLean too much for details of the weather in the Arctic.
This was Howard Hughes’s all-time favorite movie. He had his own print and watched it over and over and over again. I kid you not.
To be fair, I believe he served on at least two Russian convoys in the war, where I am sure he was exposed to Arctic conditions (something he writes best about IMO)
HMS Ulysses. A great novel about a destroyer on convoy duty. A friend of mine railed about a particular model of German bomber attacking the convoy in the novel, which he said didn’t have the range. I should think that he knew what he was talking about, but one of his later novels had headlights on a formula V race car, and Goodbye, California has a mechanical ticking timer on a nuclear weapon that is underwater.
[nitpick] HMS Ulysses was a cruiser [/nitpick].
But I agree with you. One of his best novels, and one that I would dearly love to see filmed. With CGI I suppose it’s now possible, but I wonder whether an audience would go for a downbeat ending.
The Perfect Storm did well, didn’t it?
She sure is tiny looking in the drawing in my Fawcett Gold Metal Paperback. Wiki says a light cruiser, and I guess a destroyer wouldn’t be leading the convoy.
I confused her with the historical HMS Glowworm.
Thanks.
Condors are the German planes my friend complained about.
When Howard Hughes went nuts he had Ice Station Zebra showing 24 hours a day at his house.
carnivorousplant please check with your friend. Condors were long range reconnaissance aircraft and would certainly have had the range. In fact before the war one of them flew non stop from Berlin to New York. He may have been talking about the bombers which attacked the convoy whose type I can’t recall.
The story of HMS Glowworm is an amazing one. I read a novelisation of it by Larry Forrester called “Battle of the April Storm”. I did not realise it was a true story until the end when they reproduced a facsimile of the announcement of the Victoria Cross award for the captain (who hd a different name in the novel).
That’s were I first learned of it.
I’ve always liked this movie. I even remember seeing it in the theatre (and being too young to not really follow what was going on ! ;-). I’ve always thought it was one of the better cold war movies.
As I watched the other night, I was also impressed at the under the ice scenes. Pretty darn good special effects for the day.
But I did notice something I hadn’t really seen before. In the dramatic torpedo tube flooding scene, though there’s lots of drama and people getting banged up, I never really noticed that no one really “reacts” to the water which would have been F*CKING freezing ! I mean we’re talking several ticks lower than “witch’s tit” cold ! Patrick McGoohan even dives down into it to recover a fallen sailor. That water would been about 32.0000001 deg. (F) ! Standing in it like all those guys did would have surely caused hypothermia. I think it would have required much more than just a dry blanket for Patrick and Ernest !
Anyone who wants a great book about RN convoy duty during WW2 should check out The Cruel Sea: The Cruel Sea (novel) - Wikipedia
Haven’t seen the movie of it, but I hear it’s also very good.