When spilling the beans is not an option

A scene from the 1968 movie Where Eagles Dare.
| Photo Credit: BY SPL ARGMT

In my schooldays when reading an entire series of thrillers or spy novels was good etiquette, Alistair Maclean supplied both genres. We regretted there were no school exams on the Complete Works of Maclean.

But even as we were slicing through the oeuvre, many of us were aware that Maclean could be thrilling and unreadable, predictable and surprising in turn. I wondered if adults actually read this stuff. Recently, I discovered a kindred soul – the English writer Geoff Dyer, who said, “Where Eagles Dare is unreadably bad in spite of its narrative allure. Was I, as a second and third former at Grammar school firmly in the midst of the Maclean-buying demographic?” 

The movie of the book is another matter. Steven Spielberg called it his favourite war movie. The novelist Michael Ondaatje is a fan. Most of us of a certain age have watched it more than once – it is a direct link to our adolescence. 

In his lovely book about the movie, Broadsword Calling Danny Boy, Dyer summarises the plot well: “They’ve got to get in and get Carnaby out, before he spills the beans on the Second Front.” 

‘They’ are a group of seven being dropped across enemy lines to the Schloss Adler, the Castle of the Eagles (so named because only eagles can get there). Two airmen are of particular interest: Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton. “Squinting is pretty much the limit of Eastwood’s facial range as an actor,” says Dyer, “Eastwood has squinted his way through five decades of superstardom in a way that renders him, in facial terms monosyllabic.” 

As the mission commences, Burton looks anxious because “he has money worries….he has enough dough to burn an elephant, he has got into the habit of buying so much stuff that he might not have enough money to buy even more stuff. That’s one of the motives for doing a picture like this…so that he can buy his modern-day Cleopatra things like a jet…” 

Dyer analyses plot thus: “If Where Eagles Dare belongs in the pantheon of great getaway films, that is partly because of the impressive number of modes of transport deployed.” This includes the cable car, which must have been very exciting in the 1970s. 

Being funny without cracking a joke or carrying a scene to its preposterous limit is a Dyer specialty. He stands alone in the genre of auto non-fiction. The range of references – from literature, movies, music and the arts – add to the fun. 

This being Maclean, about half the party are double agents, bent on killing the others. 

Bridges are blown up, buildings destroyed, cable cars reduced to nothing and fresh rubble deposited everywhere by Burton’s posse. Dyer wonders how many years it will take to rebuild it all. Still, he says, “all things considered this has gone swimmingly. You couldn’t hope to come out of a five-a-side football game in better shape than this. It’s also been immensely profitable for everyone concerned.” 

What more can you ask of a movie experience?