Original Australian Daybill Movie Poster Bear Island
Excellent poster art by artist Brian Bysouth. Bear Island is a 1979 Anglo-Canadian thriller film loosely based on the novel Bear Island by Alistair MacLean. It was directed by Don Sharp and starred Donald Sutherland, Vanessa Redgrave, Richard Widmark, Christopher Lee and Lloyd Bridges. The plot revolves around a UN expedition of scientists from different countries come to barren arctic Bear Island, between Svalbard and northern Norway, to study climate change. However, several of them turn out to be more interested in the fact that (according to the film) there was a German U-boat base on the island during the Second World War with a shipment of gold on board one of the boats. The film would be the most expensive made in Canada until that time, costing over $9 million.While the interiors were shot in Pinewood Studios outside London, the outdoor scenes were shot at Stewart, British Columbia and at Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska, depicting a much more dramatic landscape than the real Bear Island offers.