Ice Palace strives to be a blockbuster movie. It boasts an eye catching cast, a wonderful musical score,and some impressive cinematography....and IT STINKS!!! Awful adaptation from the book. Laughably bad script! Poorly edited with a plot that moves so slow that it is almost comatose.Pedestrian direction by Vincent Sherman.Dickie Burton is totally miscast in the lead role. Robert Ryan's performance has all the subtle nuance of a kick in the groin. Carolyn Jones is in way over her head in a role that was supposed to have gone to Jean Simmons. The younger talent doesn't fare much better.Burton latter admitted that his principle interest in taking the role was in bagging his leading ladies in the film. He scored the trifecta and bedded Jones, McBain, and in the case of Shirley Knight claiming her maidenhood. He didn't mess with Martha Hyer because, according to George Takei, she was involved producer Hal Wallis and Wallis could have destroyed Burton's career. It certainly wasn't an interest in the film production that kept Burton in front of the camera.Ice Palace is sort of a dinosaur. Big, lumbering, clumsy, and out of date. You'll laugh, you''ll cringe ...at all the wrong times. Its 143 minutes of your life you will not be able to get back.

I like this movie due to the fact it celebrates the statehood of Alaska and it features Richard Burton pre Cleopatra when he was a solid journeyman Actor before all the hype of the Taylor/Burton affair. Vincent Sherman who made many fine films at Warner Bros. directs this film and it is a very easy going picture with great photography. Sherman did fine work at WB (and is noted for his relationships -at different times with feuding divas Joan Crawford and the Queen of the Lot Bette Davis)Am also a fan of the Warner Bros stock company of the 1960's and several players of that group are cast here including the fine actor Ray Danton, and the lovely Diane McBain. Both Danton and McBain were groomed for stardom and Warners kept both busy in both movies and TV. Luscious Diane McBain was so beautiful but got lost at WB standing behind glamour girls Natalie Wood, and Connie Stevens. Warners would shunt their stock players between various TV shows and movies filming on the lot. There is a great picture which I wish someone would find that showed J L Warner with the dozens of players under contract at the time shot on the back lot: Troy Donahue, Connie Stevens, Edd Byrnes, Roger Smith, Peter Brown, Chad Everett, Dorothy Provine, Tony Eisley, Gary Vinson, Diane McBain, Ty Hardin et al, names that conjure up wonderful memories of a bygone era)Is "Ice Palace" a great movie? no! Is it enjoyable to watch? Yes!

Without any doubt one of the corniest, most idiotic dramas of all time. Based on a "novel" by one of those dim-witted and talentless 5-dime soap-opera female writers, it lives "up" to its expectations, and then some: this film is a laugh-a-minute drama which easily qualifies for a "Mystery Science Theater 3000" treatment. The dialog, the story, the characters, the plot-twists, the plot-devices, and the unintentionally comical dramatic soundtrack all combine to form a movie that has to be seen to be believed. The sheer imbecility of it all is a joy. Ed Wood would have been proud had he made it.Where should I even begin? Here goes, in no particular order: 1) Burton's and Ryan's granddaughter (how poetic) is quarter Eskimo, but what about those blond, Swedish looks? 2) Her Eskimo Daddy is basically a white college type with dark oil smeared onto his face, 3) His fight with the bear is a comedic highlight; watch how he goes at the bear (and why isn't it a white i.e. polar bear?) with just a knife, and how little he is hurt when the bear slaps him, 4) the moment Ryan's son was born it became so damn obvious that he would grow up and fall in love with Burton's daughter, and that way set the stage for a lame re-re-re-re-re-hash of "Romeo & Juliet", 5) the re-re-re-re-re-re-hash not only ends tragically - it ends so ULTRA-tragically that I had to laugh out loud! Romeo gets killed by a bear, while Juliet dies at the same time at childbirth, 6) By the way, Juliet is woman no.2 to die at childbirth in this movie; it seems that in the early Alaskan days babies tended to plop out of the womb at the most inconvenient times, and there was nobody in sight anywhere to help; plus it was a convenient way to get rid of two mothers so that Jones can be their reserve-mommy, 7) and as if the totally over-the-top deaths of Romeo and Juliet weren't enough, only (movie-)minutes before their doom Burton's wife dies of a heart-attack; them corpses, they just kept a-pilin' in the middle section (and them plot-devices, they started a-getting' dumber and dumber), 8) since Burton made it as a successful capitalist, it was only fair that his arch-enemy, Ryan the fisherman, makes it as a politician: this is rather hilarious, too, 9) Burton's rich daughter (Juliet) decides to run away from home to Romeo's Eskimo village and she is happy there! 10) Baccus's son is born BEFORE Juliet yet I had the strange impression that Juliet was a cool 5 years older, 11) one of the idiotic highlights is "Star Trek"'s Zulu (Takei; in a wonderfully bad performance) trying to find a doctor for Burton's expecting wife, but managing only to find Jones, whom the former can't stand - how poetic! 12) in the first scenes showing Romeo's and Juliet's daughter (let's just call her Lovechild) the movie almost becomes a sit-com, with Burton and Ryan being both Granddaddies to her but also arch-enemies, and Lovechild being in the middle, but 13) then suddenly the movie starts getting overly dramatic and soppy yet, yet, yet again! 14) Burton saves Ryan's life at the end - how CORNY! 15) a highlight in the last half-hour (which tends to get dull) is undoubtedly Burton losing his cool at a political hearing and wanting to have a punch-up with Ryan! It strikes me as the height of hypocrisy and irony that a movie which takes such a righteous stance against racism casts all-white actors to play half- or quarter- Eskimos. Were they afraid that we wouldn't like Eskimo-looking Eskimos as much as Eskimos who look like they graduated from Yale? Talk about left-wing Hollywood's double-standards. I can't imagine how the actors must have felt uttering so many idiotic lines. There are a number of moments of campy preaches and pathetic moralizing which are only good enough for 5-dime soap-operas and retards. The fact that this dumb tale is supposed to be an epic only makes it sillier. And how about Jones's bad looks: this bug-eyed actress, who looks at least ten years older than she really is, is the focal point of the two lead studs. But perhaps that was - as Takei found out one day (in one scene) - the result of her being the only woman in town.

If this is the movie where there is a great granddaughter all grown and the two men are still battling and she says she is still 1/4 Eskimo. This happened at the end and there is a big parade - probably the state hood. I saw this back in 1961 and have remembered it for over 45 years and never seen it again. I've been frantically looking for this movie. I hope this is the one I am looking for. I loved the movie. And I want to see it again and again only this is the first time I've even come close to seeing if this is the right one or not. I found this movie to be educational, yet entertaining. I would recommend this movie to all young people who would like to hear about it. Rhonda Hill