Ice Palace

Alaskan melodrama in which Richard Burton rises from unemployment to cannery mogul, getting everything he wants through ruthless determination. Carolyn Jones is the other side of the coin, a woman who fails through indetermination to get anything she wants out of life - including Burton.

It's another Edna Ferber novel about industrial pioneers with an underlying environmental message (the devastation of fish stocks). It's unappealing and humourless, with Burton laying it on too thick, and the drama driven by unpleasant people finding excuses to get on each others' nerves.

Then (like Ferber's Giant) it starts to creak across generations with lots of unconvincing aging and new characters appearing late in the film we are surprised to have to care about. Finally, just to ratchet up the excitement, it gets all political.

Watching pack-ice breaking up would be more satisfying.