Far fetched - and enjoyable, none the less

Rating: 7/10 (15 January 2013)

I remember seeing "Where Eagles Dare" in a movie theater in Phoenix, AZ, when we were vacationing and visiting relatives who lived there. Being a 5th grader at the time, the violence, fake blood and people getting shot in the head or getting a pick ax in the arm was "cool." I was swept away by the story at the time, never noticing how unbelievably contrived the whole plot was, even for those willing to suspend disbelief for a couple of hours.
Revisiting the full film after all these years on BluRay (it's been on TV thousands of times in cut-up versions), it actually flows better than I remember. I'm more appreciative of the scenes that act to break the tension in what is basically an action flick with a contrived and twisting plot, the height of which has to be Richard Burton's scene where he explains who he is - or isn't - to the German brass holding court in the eagle's nest. Alastair McLean's plot falls apart if a single scene of his highly inventive story doesn't happen at precisely the time with precisely the outcome as happens in the film. And where did they get all that dynamite??
The film's biggest drawback is the tedious and repetitive musical score by Ron Goodwin. Yikes! Sequence after sequence of rising pitch that leads nowhere, the score consists of three musical themes that are used and reused to the point of absurdity. Ghastly stuff!
Still, the film is highly entertaining if one can get past the musical score.
Clint Eastwood gives an enjoyable performance in this film. It's reassuring to see old "Squint" proving that he could once act, stealing scenes with a minimum of effort, which is a real tonic to his most-recent gig as an angry old white guy yelling at an empty chair.
The BD transfer is quite good, especially as WED is a very dark film which usually comes off as an indistinct blur when played on TV. The BD has about as much clarity and contrast as one could hope for in a film that rarely (if ever) sees daylight.
Recommended.