Where Eagles Dare

Often broadcasted around the festive period is snowy action war film, Where Eagles Dare, which sees a small unit of British soldiers airdropped into the Bavarian mountains, along with an American soldier, to infiltrate a castle occupied by Nazi soldiers who are holding an important general captive. Released in 1968, this is very much Action Man (or G.I. Joe for Americans) in WW2 and has cast a strong influence in more recent action films and video games.

Among the task force is Richard Burton as the leader and Clint Eastwood as the American soldier who is brought onboard for reasons not yet clear to him. The mission is a cold and dangerous one that sees the squad well behind enemy lines and within minutes of landing, one of them has been killed. There is a traitor out there but time is pressing and so they make plans to sneak into the fortified castle atop a perilous mountain. 

Directed by Brian G. Hutton, who would go onto make Kelly's Heroes, Where Eagles Dare runs at a lengthy 155 minutes but still holds up well today as an entertaining action adventure. This doesn't have anything harrowing or important to say about warfare, no this is a macho film where the men and women involved must think on their feet to achieve their goal whatever the cost. The cast are all great, the action is a lot of fun with limited use of dodgy rear projection and benefits from a lot of real locations in the snowy countryside, which all adds a nice visual touch to the experience. And then you add Ron Goodwin's score which all amps up the scale and tension wonderfully. 

However, at 56 years old, there are moments in this film which might seem too slow for newcomers. The pacing is good and I enjoyed how this takes its time to set the scene but perhaps it needed some tighter editing towards the latter half. Where Eagles Dare is also based on a novel, released one year prior to this, and perhaps a more ruthless writer would have trimmed some of the various threads down. Nonetheless, I think Hutton still does a great job and there are plenty of memorable moments throughout which kept this exciting and it's not hard to see the influence it had on Tarantino's work today. 

Where Eagles Dare is still a lot fun today and hasn't aged all that much were it not for a slightly excessive running time. Hutton still makes great use of his talented cast and practical effects in the action sequences to deliver a highly entertaining adventure that stands the test of time and is an easy recommendation if this sounds of interest to you.