My favourite Movies: Where Eagles Dare.

I LOVE this movie. I know it’s cheesy but I seriously love it. I can remember seeing it with my Dad back in 1968. The opening sequence stayed with me for years afterwards – the soft drumming getting louder and louder until the Junkers JU-52 transport plane fills the screen and we are catapulted straight into the middle of the story. We quickly learn the nature of the mission ahead for the disparate group of Allied heroes yet it soon becomes apparent that all is not what it seems. Classic wartime drama with more twists and turns than a spiral staircase!

As a big fan of both Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton I was not disappointed with their roles and acting. Burton was superb as the weather beaten Major in charge of the team and Eastwood played the American outsider to the hilt. I particularly liked Eastwood’s scene on the stairwell where he waits patiently for the German soldiers before casually gunning them down. Then of course there is the wonderful bus chase and the cable car fight to name but two more adrenaline pumping scenes.

Sure the plot has some glaring historical inaccuracies – most notably the use of a Bell 47 helicopter a year before the first prototype flew – but I could care less. It was just such a fun and exciting film. I was overawed by it as a child and it still has a special place in my heart decades later.

I keep meaning to read the book so I could compare notes. If its still in print I’ll just have to do that.