The eagles have landed

Rating: 6/10 (14 November 2017)

I came to this movie after reading author Alastair MacLean's novelisation of the film, not realising that unlike earlier film adaptations of his books, this time the film came first. Actually I preferred the book anyway as for me both Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood didn't suggest themselves to me as the actors who would portray Commander Smith and Major Schaffer. In fact I'd argue that they're both miscast anyway, Burton is way too old and bulky for an action movie of this type and Eastwood is too taciturn and cold in his part, probably killing more Germans than the words of dialogue he speaks. There's no real sense of camaraderie between them either.
The story is naturally reminiscent of the writer's earlier success "The Guns Of Navarone", being another seemingly impossible mission to an impregnable location by a small team of crack soldiers, led by an older man with of course treachery in the air within and without the group itself. There are lots of derring action sequences including several explosions, car chases and especially the climactic scenes on top of a descending cable-car, however Eastwood's own wry rechristening of the film as "Where Doubles Dare" is borne out in almost every scene of exertion or danger as the director invariably cuts to stunt men and women in bulked up weatherproof gear, shot from the back to mask their features.
In supporting roles, I liked the work of Mary Ure and Derren Nesbitt better than the leads, the former as the utility girl who secretly joins the group, the latter as a high-ranking Aryan- looking S.S. Captain but Peter Barkworth for one is wasted, barely speaking a line as one of the minor members of the team, he was of course later put to better use in this kind of setting in the BBC's long-running TV series "Colditz".
The body count is pretty high throughout with the Germans as usual in films like this inexplicably missing our heroes when it's easier to shoot them, plus there are a number of jarringly obvious old-fashioned process shots in the days before green-screen.
It's still a decent actioner evocatively shot in winter against a dramatic Alpine backdrop, but, like Burton in the lead role, it does rather show its age at times.