Retro Film Review: Where Eagles Dare (1968)

Retro Film Review: Where Eagles Dare (1968) | Ecency

(source: tmdb.org)

Action movies, like any other genre, tend to change over time. Today it is impossible to imagine an action spectacle being scripted by a renowned novelist and having a theatre legend in the leading role. But thirty years ago this was quite normal for Hollywood, and one of the better examples of this practice can be found in Where Eagles Dare, a 1968 World War Two action spectacle directed by Brian G. Hutton. The screenplay was written by Alistair MacLean, a prolific author of popular action-packed novels (many of them later adapted into popular films, including The Guns of Navarone), while the lead was played by Richard Burton, an actor who until that time had been associated only with serious dramatic roles.

The plot begins in the early months of 1944, when two leaders of British intelligence – Vice Admiral Rolland (played by Michael Hordern) and Colonel Turner (played by Patrick Wymark) – summon top Allied covert operatives for an important mission deep in the heart of Nazi-controlled Europe. A few days earlier, an Allied plane was shot down over southern Bavaria, and a team of commandos under British Major Smith (played by Richard Burton) must liberate a captured U.S. general before he reveals important information about the upcoming D-Day invasion to German intelligence. Smith's team, wearing German uniforms, is parachuted into southern Bavaria, near the "Castle of the Eagles", a mountain fortress where the general is being held. Actually getting to the fortress is difficult, because it is accessible only by helicopter and cable car. But this is the least of Smith's problems, because some members of his team start getting killed in suspicious circumstances and the Germans seem to be aware of their presence. Lt. Schaeffer (played by Clint Eastwood), the only American in the team, is also baffled by these events and he starts doubting the true purpose of the mission.

Where Eagles Dare is bound always to be compared to The Guns of Navarone, its better-known predecessor, also based on MacLean's text. Both films (and novels, since MacLean later turned his script into a novel) feature a small band of Allied commandos deep behind Nazi lines on a covert yet spectacular mission against all odds – a formula that was used in many popular WW2 films in the 1960s. Pure action is combined with complex plot twists and uncertain allegiances of main characters. Unlike The Guns of Navarone, viewers actually have to wait a whole hour before the first action scene (and this is the reason why viewers accustomed to the Bruckheimer/Silver type of action movie might find it overlong and boring), but when the action actually starts, it never stops until the end and features endless shootouts, explosions, car chases, general mayhem and a body count that could put even Hong Kong directors to shame. Those viewers who are patient enough to sit through the first hour are going to be rewarded with very good stuntwork, excellent pyrotechnics and special effects that look convincing even after three decades. And even the scenes that aren't that spectacular – like the fight on the cable car roof – are so well done that they would be remembered long after the rest of the film is forgotten.

Unfortunately, Where Eagles Dare, like many other action films, loses a lot of its value whenever someone takes it seriously. There needs to be more suspension of disbelief than usual to accept the ease with which our protagonists enter and leave heavily defended Nazi fortresses and airports, dodge thousands of bullets and, despite overwhelming numerical inferiority, manage to cause more casualties to the Wehrmacht than those suffered in the course of certain major WW2 campaigns. In the end viewers might even start to feel sorry for all those multitudes of Germans who constantly get stabbed, strangled, shot, torched and blown up without any chance to fight back. The obvious invulnerability of the protagonists comes with a complete lack of complex characterisation – they are presented as stone-cold and emotionless killing machines we couldn't care less about. Even the actors show no desire to breathe some air into their cardboard characters, and this is especially evident in the obligatory romantic coupling of Richard Burton's and Mary Ure's characters. The supporting players, as usual, are those who steal the show – Patrick Wymark as half-mad Colonel Turner and Darren Nesbitt as a frustrated Gestapo officer. However, the excellent Alpine locations and equally impressive musical score by Ron Goodwin are more than enough to turn these two and a half hours of non-stop action into a pleasant viewing experience.

RATING: 6/10 (++)

(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.movies.reviews on June 5th 2001)