All Movie Guide:
Plot Synopsis by Hal Erickson
An expensive but enormously profitable war picture, Where Eagles Dare centers upon a daring rescue and even more daring escape. Disguised as Nazi officers, commandoes Maj. John Smith (Richard Burton), Lt. Morris Schaffer Clint Eastwood and six other courageous souls parachute behind enemy lines. Their mission: to rescue an American general, held captive in a supposedly impenetrable Alpine castle. Aiding and abetting the commandoes are Allied undercover agents Mary (Mary Ure) and Heidi (Ingrid Pitt). Also on hand is a British officer (Patrick Wymark), who masterminded the mission. Somewhere, somehow, someone amongst the Allies is going to turn out to be a traitor. There's also a neat plot twist in store when the commandoes manage to reach the American general -- which leads to yet another twist. The vertigo-inducing climax has made Where Eagles Dare one of the most sought-after of "early" Eastwood starring features. The film was written directly for the screen by espionage novelist Alistair MacLean.
This Men On A Mission film is one of the more profitable of the genre, but, except for two sequences, not one of the most exciting. I had read about this film whenever reading about WWII movies and their subgenre of Men On A Mission movies. Films like The Dirty Dozen and The Guns Of Navarone make up this sub-genre. Quentin Tarantino plans on making his own contribution to the genre with his upcoming Inglorious Bastards.
The film takes its time getting going, introducing the characters, the side characters, outlining the mission, gearing up to go, and parachuting out of the plane. For the first hour or so, we are making our way towards the castle. Not a lot is exposed about our characters which only lessens the film and our care for the characters.
There are two nice sequences:
1. Where a German watchman is listening to the radio and switching the stations as Eastwood is trying to sneak up behind him. He turns the music off, on, scratchy static, off, on scratchy static, then he turns off the music... Nice Sequence.
2. When the soldiers try to make their escape via the Air Trolleys you can see in the top poster, there is a lot of in/out/in/out while escaping. It is a well paced suspense and action sequence.
All in all, this wasn't as exciting as others in the genre but was worth watching on a lazy Saturday afternoon. I leave you with a crazy foreign poster for the film I found online:
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