Patrick McGoohan and Rock Hudson: Pounding Their Fists on a Table

Deep in the ice cold 1968 epic that was "Ice Station Zebra," there comes a scene in which mysterious British spy Patrick McGoohan and stolid nuclear submarine commander Rock Hudson sit alone in a room at a table together and discuss the recent near-sinking of their sub, by a saboteur.

McGoohan is desperate for the sub to continue its voyage quickly to the North Pole; Hudson wants to slow down and investigate the sabotage.

McGoohan starts quietly and with moderation but suddenly ROARS in rage and pounds the table with his fist; the table moves up and down. "Commander(quietly) I need you to get me there, somehow, someway, I don't care how but GET ME THERE!"

The audience leaps with McGoohan's sudden rage.

And then Rock gets his turn. He's angry too, and he has something valuable to impart: "My submarine has been sabotaged, one of my men is dead, three are injured and I WANT TO GET TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS!"

Except Hudson has none of McGoohan's rage, and rather lightly taps his fist on the table.

Its rather an embarrassing moment -- or is it?

Clearly McGoohan has more capacity for rage -- that great actor's tool that George C. Scott, Rod Steiger, Jack Nicholson, and Gene Hackman used so well -- but it Is a bit "showy."

Hudson's "quieter" rage(and more gentle pounding of his fist on the table) MAY mean that Hudson simply didn't have the capacity for rage in HIS actor's skills - and yet, it seems perhaps more believable that the sub captain simply isn't going to "lose his composure" like McGoohan did. So: forceful in response, but...no rage.

I'm really not sure. Still, the scene rather embarrasses Rock Hudson.

As for Patrick McGoohan, his then-hip turn on British TV as "The Prisoner"(which was then shown in America) got him a contract with MGM that seems to have played out only in one "epic"(Ice Station Zebra) and one "minor action thriller"(Elmore Leonard's The Moonshine War with Richard Widmark and Alan Alda) and...back to TV (notably, as a Columbo villain a few times.)

Too bad. We didn't really have McGoohan as a star for very long but -- Ice Station Zebra, oddly enough -- probably stands as his biggest star role, and his best performance -- it was a shot at Richard Burton level stardom.