For a time, the action in this Cold War thriller, based on the Alistair MacLean novel, is as frozen stiff as the title, as a far-off polar outpost becomes a magnet for Russian and American forces out to recover some satellite photographs. Then it thaws into activity, mainly because Patrick McGoohan's British agent arrives on the scene to stir Rock Hudson out of his cryogenic slumber. McGoohan is very welcome, Ernest Borgnine overacts unrestrainedly, and the then popular though now rather clichéd MacLean original is given a steady treatment by director John Sturges, who also filmed another MacLean title, The Satan Bug, to slightly better effect.

A top-secret Soviet spy satellite -- using stolen Western technology -- malfunctions and then goes into a descent that lands it near an isolated Arctic research encampment called Ice Station Zebra, belonging to the British, which starts sending out distress signals before falling silent. The atomic submarine Tigerfish, commanded by Cmdr. James Ferraday (Rock Hudson), is dispatched to save them.