What should have been a classic WW II movie falls flat.

Rating: 4/10 (18 March 2005)

Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton star as allied agents that are sent deep into German territory to rescue a captured American General. The general of course is hold up in a German castle/fortress that will be hard to crack and they must go up against some of Jerry's finest. "Only an Eagle can get there." Or in this case a helicopter as well. A suicide mission for sure, though one will find that hard to believe after viewing this movie. But the mission is in danger right from the start. There are double agents involved and twists are at every turn. Or so they said. Lt. Schaffer (Eastwood) and British Major Smith (Burton) parachute into the Bavarian Alps with some extras and make to their way to a German town garrisoned by many Wehrmacht and SS Units. Here they make contact with a couple of women who are secret agents. Ellison (Mary Ure) helps and they manage to ditch the guys who dropped in with them, cause there cover was blown. Eventually they make their way up to the fortress and conduct their operation and rescue the general, all while battling crack SS units with no casualties in sight. They finally escape and are whisked away by a stolen German Junkers plane the Brits are flying. On the plane Burton reveals that he knows the traitor is the colonel who sent them off on the first place. Rather then face a trial the traitor jumps to his death and the movie ends.
This movie was a big disappointment to say the least. Eastwood and Burton are totally wasted in this film. Obviously it was for the star power that gave this film any kind of reason to see it. What should have been a great move with an equally great story falls flat. From start to finish Eastwood and Burton walk through their roles like a couple of wooden actors. The story itself starts out interesting enough, but becomes totally confusing and left me with the feeling of "who cares" when the secrets come to light. Why does there seem to be so much praise for the Gestapo agent? He looks more like a blonde clown with a wig then a scary character. The only characters that came across right seem to be the high ranking Germans.
The story may not have been the worst part, but more important was the lack of accuracy in this movie. As a historian I found I quit laughable that a helicopter was being used by the Nazis to fly in some General.???? In WW II?! The Nazis were very far ahead in jet propulsion, but I was unaware that they had also managed to develop working helicopters that were that advanced. Only the most limited version would have been around. Its one thing for movies of old to use painted American vehicles for something else because in many cases we did not have them or could not reproduce them on screen, but such a blatant inaccuracy is beyond stupid.
Another bad point is that they fail to really show the "Language Barrier" that would obviously exist between the nations involved. Well Hollywood decided that they would just make everyone speak English and forget about the problems involved. Since they are secret agents /special forces they would be trained in duel languages, but at least put on a decent accent. In other great movies of the time they address this in a better way, such as The Dirty Dozen or The Longest Day. At least some Germans speak German though.
The action gets to be repetitive after awhile and quit fake even for Hollywood. Do you really expect me to believe Eastwood would hold of so many crack SS troops so easily. And on they went nailing Germans from far away with guns, that were not all that accurate and the Germans of course missing every shot. We are treated to more and more scenes that are just laughable to watch. There are to many to mention but here are just a few.
1. As they land one of their comrades is killed, a soldier asks should we bury him or leave him here. Burton says let the snow cover him To bad its not snowing!
2. If you are sneaking into enemy lines and blending in, why would you openly discus the mission at hand in a public pub.
3. The stars are being taken away in a car, Eastwood needs to "tie his shoe", then overpowers the enemy and the car crashes killing all but they are barley injured.
4. Why would Eastwood and Burton who are armed better and have hostages give up their weapons to a clown who has a pistol?
5. How much dynamite did they pack in those backpacks? No matter when or where they pulled one out and had it ready to do their biding. Even Rambo only carried so many detonators. And don't get me started on how they worked.
Overall this move should have been great but turns out very poor and rather comical in many instances. If they had done a better job on acting, dialogue and actions scenes it may have been good. If your looking for good WW II movies there are far better ones such as The Dirty Dozen and The Longest Day. Eastwood made so many great movies but this is obviously not one of them. Overall a 4 1/2 out of 10 stars for this. The Iron Maiden song of the same name is far better.