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9
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7 |
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10
= Highest Rating |
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Guest
Review by Troy
Howarth |
A
team of Allied commandos infiltrate a Nazi-occupied
castle in order to spring a captured American
general...
Adapted by Alistair MacLean from his own
novel, Where Eagles Dare
is a fantastic mixture of action and suspense.
A rare World War II adventure that maintains a
solid momentum from beginning to end while also
succeeding in making the audience feel for the
characters, it never lets up and keeps the surprises
coming until the very last scene.
The film benefits from the unusual pairing
of Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood. In many
respects, the two men are polar opposites —
Burton is short, beefy, introspective and somewhat
theatrical, whereas Eastwood is tall, lanky, laconic
and very natural in his approach to acting. The
two men have a wonderful chemistry on screen,
however, that gives the film a special punch.
From an acting standpoint, it's really Burton's
show — he's the center
of attention and gets all the good lines. Eastwood,
to a degree, is relegated to the background, but
he never wilts when Burton is on screen. He more
than holds his own, which is saying a great deal
for an actor who, up until that point, had seldom
acted alongside actors of Burton's caliber and
reputation.
The supporting cast includes a number of
familiar faces: Patrick Wymark (The
Skull, Blood
On Satan's Claw), Ferdy Mayne (The
Fearless Vampire Killers, The
Vampire Lovers), Michael Hordern (The
Spy Who Came In From The Cold, Theater
Of Blood), Ingrid Pitt (Countess
Dracula, The Wicker
Man), Anton Diffring (Faceless,
The Blue Max), and
many others. Pitt and Mary Ure provide the film
with some eye candy, but they also make for credible
contacts for the Burton character and get to play
an active role in the finale —
indeed the sight of Ure holding her own with a
submachine gun must have been quite novel for
audiences in 1968! Diffring, a gifted actor who
fled Germany to escape the Nazis, ironically ended
up playing Nazis in British films on many occasions
— Where
Eagles Dare is no exception, though he
actually evokes more sympathy here than usual,
probably because the role of the real evil
Nazi is left to smug Derren Nesbitt. There's not
a single bad performance in the film, which, considering
its size and scope, is rather remarkable.
Director Brian G. Hutton does a terrific
job with the material. Granted he had the advantage
of an unusually good action screenplay by MacLean,
but he still manages to do ample justice to what's
on the page and deliver some fabulous action sequences.
The material on the cable cars, with Burton fighting
off would-be assassins while clambering to stay
on the slippery rooftop, is absolutely wonderful.
Hutton also makes good use of crosscutting to
help sustain the suspense in various sequences,
notably towards the end when everyone appears
to be double crossing everybody else. Hutton,
who would later re-team with Eastwood for the
massively entertaining WWII caper Kelly's
Heroes (1970), is something of an unsung
master of this type of film and Where
Eagles Dare is a fantastic demonstration
of his abilities.
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Warner
Bros.' release of Where Eagles
Dare, as part of their Clint Eastwood
Collection, is more than satisfactory. The 2.35/16x9
image looks fabulous. Arthur Ibbetson's stylish
cinematography fares very well in this transfer,
with dirt and grain kept to a bare minimum. There
is no distracting print damage to report. Audio
quality is also good, though WB have sadly opted
to include only the newly mixed 5.1 track, and not
the original mono mix. The 5.1 track sounds very
good, however, and does a particularly nice job
of serving up Ron Goodwin's excellent music score.
Extras include a mildly interesting behind-the-scenes
piece, shot as the film was being made (no retrospective
stuff), a talent bio for Eastwood (why not Burton?),
and a theatrical trailer.
7/17/05 |
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