Bear Island (1979)

The usual Alistair MacLean combination of exciting action, rugged far-flung locations, foolish dialogue and positive performances – the exception here being Vanessa Redgrave, whose “Norwegian” accent makes her sound like Inspector Clouseau.

The Arctic Circle settings, beautifully photographed by Alan Hume, give the highly-coloured adventure an additional boost, and director Don Sharp, who made the sizzling speedboat sequence in another MacLean-inspired film, Puppet on a Chain, this time offers us a snow boat chase guaranteed to warm the iciest blood.

A UN scientific expedition researching global weather changes journeys to the isolated and inhospitable Bear Island in the Arctic Circle.

A member of the group’s advance party is killed by an unknown driving an advanced type of snowmobile, and the main party arrives with a sense of foreboding.

The main group includes American marine biologist Frank Lansing (Donald Sutherland), whose father had been a German submarine commander in World War II; Norwegian medical officer Heddi Lindquist (Vanessa Redgrave); expedition leader Professor Otto Gerran (Richard Widmark); former US Navy diver Smithy (Lloyd Bridges); Polish meteorologist Professor Lechinski (Christopher Lee); and English mineralologist Judith Rubin (Barbara Parkins).

Also on the island are a NATO early warning System base and a former U-boat base used by the Germans during the war. Both are declared off-limits by Gerran.

Lansing and Judith venture near the Nazi U-boat pens, and an avalanche is deliberately unleashed on them, killing Judith.

Lansing later swims through an underwater passage into the pens and finds the rusting hulk of a U-boat trapped there, with his father’s skeleton in the captain’s cabin, its skull shattered by a bullet which had entered the back of the head. There are other skeletons, and the submarine is loaded with gold bullion.

He does not report his discovery, but later, he and Smithy narrowly escape death when their snowmobile explodes. The two men suspect members of their own group, and Lansing tries to use the NATO emergency frequency in a call for help, but the radio mast has been sabotaged.

Crashing to the ground, it kills Professor Lechinski, and an exploding generator destroys most of the group’s housing and provisions.

The survivors are left without heat, light or food in the midst of an Arctic blizzard.

When the storm subsides, Lansing and Heddi set off on snow scooters to seek help from the NATO base on the other side of Bear Island. As Lansing expected, they find themselves pursued by two snowcats, travelling at high speed.

Lansing and Heddi swerve and zig-zag out of the paths of the deadly vehicles, taking desperate chances on the icy terrain, and one of the pursuing drivers is eventually lured into Lansing’s trap. The biologist is able to capture the snowcat and speed to Heddi’s rescue.

Together, they race to the U-boat pens, only to find the gold is gone. There is a final, surprising pursuit.

Filming of the $9 million British/Canadian adventure epic in Alaska and British Columbia (Canada) was not without incident. The director, Don Sharp, and four crew members were lost in a blizzard atop the Frank Mackie Glacier for two nights, and a helicopter pilot was killed in a crash a few weeks later.

Interiors were filmed at Pinewood Studios in England.

Frank Lansing
Donald Sutherland
Heddi Lindquist
Vanessa Redgrave
Professor Otto Gerran
Richard Widmark
Professor Lechinski
Christopher Lee
Judith Rubin
Barbara Parkins
Smithy
Lloyd Bridges
Paul Hartman
Lawrence Dane
Inge Van Zipper
Patricia Collins
Heyter
Michael J Reynolds
Jungbeck
Nicholas Cortland
Larsen 
Hagan Beggs

Director
Don Sharp

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