Bear Island (1979)

Review: written Feb 2012

Who is Zelda..!

Set in the extreme cold of Bear Island, and shot in British Columbia and Alaska, the setting of this movie is one of the big attractions - add to this a then-stellar cast of Sutherland, Lee, Redgrave, Widmark et al, with an Alistair MacLean story at its heart, and this should have been a sure thing. Alas, while not a complete disaster, it seems to fallen victim to the MacLean curse of poor novel-to-movie adaptations. Scant wonder that the end title promise of another MacLean novel adaptation (Goodbye California) `coming soon' a la Bond movie end title promise, never actually happened.

The movie starts about a third of the way through the novel, ditches most of the plot except for character names and the plot device of nazi gold hidden in U-boat pens, and adds a truly leaden script. There's still a decent plot, albeit lacking the complexity of MacLean's original, and it is glued together with a few effective action set pieces... the chase on the snow, and some mano a mano fights are effectively done. Sutherland does his part satisfactorily, while most of the rest are saddled with a poor script delivered with some pretty laughable accents which come and go throughout the movie. Critically missing is the dry wit and sarcasm of the source material, and the earnestness with which those all-too-often laughable lines are delivered tends to be amusing when it is apparently intended to be tension-filled.

Despite its shortgivings, I have a soft spot for the movie. It has some great locations, interesting mixture of old school and new school actors, and a passable enough Maguffin for the plot device. It even has the traditional MacLean plot twist. Be warned, the only DVD version I could find was a particularly awful transfer. The scenes in the dark are unwatchable, the snow and ice fail to pack the visual punch they would have had on the big screen.. even the sound is muffled. The quality is bad enough that it detracts from the enjoyment of the movie considerably. So not a classic, not dismally bad. Hopefully this eventually gets a DVD / Bluray reissue in order to see the movie properly and make a more balanced judgement. I loved this movie when I saw it on TV growing up.. it's a shame that age, and the current low quality editions available, have sullied the memory.