WHERE EAGLES DARE

UK, 1968, 155 minutes, Colour.
Richard Burton, Clint Eastwood, Mary Ure, Patrick Wymark, Michael Hordern, Robert Beatty, Anton Diffring, Donald Houston.
Directed by Brian G. Hutton.

So you thought Errol Flynn, or is it John Wayne, won the war. Two and a half hours of incredible escapades prove that it was Richard Burton. During the first half of the film I thought I had never seen anything like it; but I hadn't yet seen the second half! Alistair Maclean wrote 'The Guns of Navarone', so if you liked it, then this is your film. An impossible mission (which you don't really understand till you've seen the whole film - which adds to the suspense), fights on top of Alpine cable-cars in transit, the blowing up of an Austrian Castle, it's all there with corpses piling higher and higher.

The photography of the Austrian Alps is magnificent: the action moves quickly and tides the audience over coincidences and improbabilities. The action taking place over a day and a half helps the swift pace and the early discovery that there is a traitor in the party sets the tone for suspense which comes to an unbelievable climax half-way through and, then, on we go again. Richard Burton looks a little too flabby and elderly for such a death-defying, athletic role, but he acts so well that he makes you believe him. Clint Eastwood is colder. In fact, the cold, feelingless way in which he kills so many of the enemy (who again are made to look absolute idiots who can't aim a machine gun straight) makes you wonder at times at the ruthlessness of men's characters in war.

1. The overall impact of this film? The adventure impact, entertainment? what were the main ingredients of entertainment?

2. The technical values of the film: Panavision, colour, locations, the castle, the aerial photography, the stunt work, the exploits, the explosions etc.?

3. Audience enjoyment of war films? How serious was this film? How much comic strip adventure? Did it raise any of the war issues?

4. Themes of death, murder, the expenditure of life? Individual spies, German soldiers and officers? Death as a background for the entertainment?

5. Did the film show what type of people are spies? Why they enter the job, the sense of adventure and achievement, danger and risk? Heroism?


6. Was the film fair in its presentation of Germans and British? The British superiority, the number of Germans massacred? Schaffer representing America?

7. The picture of the British: their competence, their plans, the achievement?

8. The picture of the spies: interest in the mystery about the spies, the initial deaths, experts in infiltration the fights. the spies as expendable?

9. How central was the character of Smith? Did Richard Burton carry the part well? His skills as an agent, reference to his age, his capacity for thinking and acting, the sequence in the German room? His relationship with Mary? Smith presented as a typical war-hero?

10. The contrast with Schaffer? Clint Eastwood's style, American expert, supporting? Schaffer as mystified as to what was going on? His capacity for joining in, killing?

11. The addition of Mary? The mystery of her accompanying the flight, relationship with Smith, contribution to the plan, her role in the escape? Feminine heroism?

12. The contribution of Cartwright-Jones?, his acting in the German conference, his role in the escape? The contribution of Heidi? were these credible characters? How interesting?

13. Did the film establish the Germans as real characters: the Commander, the Commander of the castle, the S.S. man? Their interrogations, methods? Shrewdness? The inevitability of their death?

14. How were the adventure sequences the high point of the film: the parachute landings, scaling the castle walls, the cable car sequences, Smith's acting to get the names of the spies. the details of the escape the final bus chase?

15. Was the solution of the spy problem expected? The solution of the death of Turner?

16. What is achieved in this kind of adventure film? Enjoyable spectacular entertainment?