Review of Where Eagles Dare (1968) by Jake V — 20 Aug 2009

Way back when I was younger, about the middle of Secondary School, I was asked to babysit. When I got there, and was left to my duties, I had a browse on their Sky package. Now this was before Sky Digital, so if you had the whole package you might have received about 12 decent channels, but since they had cancelled Sky, I recall the only channels that would broadcast were Eurosport and TCM. Seeing as there was something like the World Egg-and-Spoon Championships on Eurosport, I had a look on the only other channel that Sky could offer me. And so I settled down to watch Where Eagles Dare for the first time. Right after it finished, the parents came back and I was paid. Not only was it the easiest £20 I ever earned, but it was also one of the most enjoyable as well�.

Where Eagles Dare follows a group of hand-picked commandos on their mission to parachute into Bavaria, infiltrate a castle on a mountain and extract a General who holds plans vital to the proposed â??Second Frontâ??, all the while trying to find out how far MI6 has been compromised.

Any film buffs wanting an example of a textbook cracking boysâ?? out adventure, this is it. With a gripping plot, clever twists, counter-agents, classic quotes (Broadsword calling Danny Boy!), good guys with strong upper class British accents (excluding Clint Eastwood), bad guys with strong German accents, bullets flying left, right and centreâ?¦ this film has it all, from minute one to the epilogue.

Of course the glue that holds all these trails together is the lead roles: Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood. With Burton playing a dry-wit but beyond-clever Major, and Eastwood playing a Liutenant who is uncertain about everything that is going on around him, while still being the guy you want by your side in any type of fight, both are in top form, playing off each other and stealing every scene which they are in (which, fortunately, is about 98% of the film).

And what else to help add to the tension but one of the all time great compositions for a war film. People talk about the Dambusters and The Great Escape for unforgettable war movie music, but when the drums fade in to this powerhouse of a soundtrack, it stirs within you like nothing else. You really cannot emulate that feeling of listening to this soundtrack while whilst Clint Eastwood mow down wave after wave of Nazis with a machine gun that has seemingly unlimited ammo.

For a film that is over 40 years old, the action still feels fresh. The signature piece of the film is unquestionably the cable car scenes, with Our Boys clambouring on top to scale the mountain as well as Burton taking on two defectors using nothing but a pickaxe and TNT (if heâ??s going to be a hero, he has to do it in style!).

How to summarise Where Eagles Dare? Brilliant viewing. Any other words wouldnâ??t add to this review. Just watch it, and place your own superlatives here.