"The World War II Classic Movie That Still Thrills" Topic

… Fifty Years Later

"Fifty years ago, Scottish born writer Alistair MacLean, author of nearly twenty books including The Guns of Navarone, published in 1961, and Ice Station Zebra, published in 1968, was approached by American producer Elliott Kastner to write a suspenseful and action-packed World War II escapade. The two got together at MacLean's residence in Surrey, England to discuss particulars. Usually, writers sell rights to convert their novels to screenplays, but in this situation, MacLean retained the rights to convert his screenplay into a novel.

In March of 1966, MacLean presented a draft he had called Adler Schloss, which translates into Eagle Castle, the castle where much of the action takes place. Kastner renamed the screenplay Where Eagles Dare, taken from a line from Shakespeare's Richard III – "Where eagles dare to perch" (Act 1, Scene 3, Pg 4). Actor and director Brian G. Hutton was chosen to direct, and he and MacLean completed the screenplay.

The movie starred Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood as the primary characters of British Major John Smith and American assassin Lieutenant Schaffer. Their mission was to infiltrate the German castle of Adler Schloss to rescue an American General, held after being shot down by the Nazis before he is forced to reveal the plans for D-Day…"

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Armand

I love that movie, at 5 star epic!

still watch it every time it shows up on TV, have seen it dozens of times – a classic!!

A relative of mine was in the film as a stunt man in the scenes on top of the cable car. No CGI in those days !!!

Yes, I can watch that one again, and again.

Great stuff, and beautiful actresses.

The novel is really poor though. I mean, truly preposterously silly. There's a Tiger tank in the Alps, see, and it opens fire on cars, and stuff.

One of my favorite films.

OK, we can all lie up and enjoy this film's glorious absurdity with a takeaway curry and several six-packs.

To prolong the pleasure, go on to read link

And, to endorse 4C, if the Maclean films can be wooden, his novels are in another league. Just like the 007 brand.

To give it its due, the opening titles and music are terrific.

I saw an interview with Ron Goodwin once where he said that for 633 Squadron he was struggling to come up with anything as a theme tune, so in desperation, he tried

1-2-3-4-5-6
1-2-3

…three times. 6, 3, 3, innit? Genius.

For Battle of Britain he needed a German-ey opening theme, and he thought Well I can't actually use the Horst Wessel Lied, but I can sort of…"quote" it….so he did. Hilariously, the resulting Luftwaffe March became popular among brass bands and the like to the point where it was embarrassing ("What's that jolly tune they're playing?" "That's the Luftwaffe March"), so that on later LP pressings, they changed its title to "Aces High".

And with Where Eagles Dare, he had to fit the music over the sound of a Ju52 Dora flying through snowcaps. His solution was gaps and drum rolls, so the music wasn't constantly trying to drown the engine noises.

Absolute class act of a man. And of course WED has Ingrid Pitt and Mary Ure in it.

The castle they used is called Hohenwerfen and the real place is great. There's no cable car, but it used to be a Hitler Youth camp, and where the young Siegfrieds once strutted, they now keep birds of prey, so not a lot of change there.

The vultures are notably lazy s, and furthermore vultures for the most part can't actually take off, they can only fly. The castle solves both problems on bird of prey days by carting vultures to the top of the ramparts and then just chucking them off. They plummet most of the way to the ground before recovering and gliding off at hair-parting height, shooting dirty looks all round at the disrespect. They only used to do these days twice a week because that was how long it took the pissed-off vultures to get over themselves and come back.

Can't say I care for this movie or "Kelly's Heroes."

I remember seeing it long ago; I was not particularly impressed.

It was an enjoyable film… though a bit preposterous at times. Long time since saw it… but didn't Eatwood fire TWO MP40s… one in each hand? Real ammo, two broken wrists!
Ron Goodwin scores were the best.

I watched this again recently after a very long gap and a lot of 'life' experience. I really tried, but I could not get past the military 'stupidities'. Why is a GESTAPO officer in uniform? How many rucksacks did the commandoes have? Where were they getting the spare magazines for their MP40s from? Why were the 'elite' German mountain troops (SS or otherwise) so stupid when it came to tactics? In the end, I gave up and just watched and realised that actually 'Where Eagles Dare' was the source of so much mirth I had encountered in my career that there was almost a warm nostalgic glow; but not quite.

My wife has forbidden me to watch it again….

laretenue pointed us to Dyer's book "Broadsword Calling Danny Boy". It is a brilliant review of the film, with highlighting of all the absurdities, dodgy acting, plot gaffs etc.

"Can't say I care for this movie or "Kelly's Heroes."

I have a rather substantial collection of war movies but Where Eagles Dare is in it only for the rather great visuals and the rather cool helicopter conversion.

Kelly's Heroes and MASH and a few others are anti-war and anti-hero movies and not found in my collection.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek

Thanks!

Armand

A relative of mine was in the film as a stunt man in the scenes on top of the cable car. No CGI in those days !!!

Further to my earlier post, here is the IMDB page listing Where Eagles Dare (uncredited) among his stunts, standing in for Clint:
imdb.com/name/nm0768136