Where Eagles Dare

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Dyer might admit that the volume's very existence is something like a gag. Six years ago, in the fine Zona, he genuflected towards Andrei Tarkovsky's sombre science-fiction masterpiece Stalker. It is hard to imagine a work more different to Where Eagles Dare. Were the two books to be placed on the same shelf, Zona might edge itself away like the possessed drinking glass at the end of the Russian film. It's been a long time since I read an Alistair MacLean novel so I grabbed one that was a favorite, and it didn't disappoint. Even though it's been years, MacLean is still a sure bet if you are looking for an entertaining story.

Broadsword Calling Danny Boy: On Where Eagles Dare review Broadsword Calling Danny Boy: On Where Eagles Dare review

Smith and Schaffer sneak into the hall of the Schloss Adler, where they find General Carnaby being interrogated by a German general. The other three members of the British team arrive and reveal that they are all double agents. During World War Two a team of British spies attempt to rescue an American general from an impregnable castle in the German Alps but, when they discover there are double agents in the group, the team must discover who the traitors are and then escape against enormous odds. The Clint Eastwood Archive: Where Eagles Dare: Terror behind the scenes!". 3 January 2018. Archived from the original on 21 October 2018 . Retrieved 20 October 2018. Production [ edit ] Festung Hohenwerfen, in Werfen, Austria, where the castle scenes were filmed Development [ edit ] This won't look so good in my obituary," Schaffer said dolefully. There was a perceptible edge of strain under the lightly-spoken words."Gave his life for his country in a ladies' lavatory in Upper Bavaria.”

Where Eagles Dare: Title

BROADSWORD CALLING DANNY-BOY … the making of WHERE EAGLES DARE". Film Review 1998: republished in The Cellulord is Watching. Archived from the original on 4 October 2013 . Retrieved 1 October 2013. A good book should leave you with a big smile of satisfaction because you've read it. And it must leave you thinking about it long after you finished it. The author: Alistair Maclean (1922-1987) was the son of a minister in the Scottish Highlands, and saw active service in the second world war in the Royal Navy. He became a schoolteacher, but won a short story competition in 1954 that encouraged him to put his war experiences into a novel. HMS Ulysses (1955) was the result, and was an immediate success, allowing Maclean to become a full-time writer. More war novels followed, notably The Guns of Navarone (1957), and Maclean moved to Switzerland in 1957 to escape UK tax laws. In the 1960s, he turned to espionage, writing The Dark Crusader (1961) and The Satan Bug (1962) under the pseudonym Ian Stuart. With a string of successful film adaptations boosting his name, Maclean's sales flourished in the 1960s, though he briefly retired from writing in 1963 to become a hotelier. Where Eagles Dare (1967) marked a return to his favourite second world war territory. As he struggled with alcoholism in the 1970s, Maclean's popularity began to wane, and his novels began to recycle old ideas. He died after a stroke in Munich in 1987. The film starts with a Colonel Exposition (not his real name) explaining why the assembled British special ops forces led by Burton, and Eastwood’s American, are going to have to get into a heavily guarded Nazi castle in the Bavarian Alps to rescue a captured general. What follows is a masterpiece of kinetic suspense, married to a ridiculously twisty spy plot, with one of cinema’s greatest musical scores, its stairway of heroic brass meticulously constructed by the British composer Ron Goodwin. It’s Spielberg’s favourite war film, and Tarantino’s favourite “men on a mission” film. (He pays vivid homage in Inglourious Basterds.) Where Eagles Dare is more than a war film, though. I’m not about to claim it’s a meditation on the human condition, because it plainly isn’t, but it skips across genres with a kind of abandon. At various times it is a heist movie (get into impregnable target, get goods, get out), an odd-couple movie (Burton and Eastwood are clearly a very odd couple, even if they don’t ever argue), a suspense movie (will the evil Gestapo major figure out that Mary Ure is One of Ours? Will she give the game away by mistake?) – and it has the brilliant and bonkers central sequence in which Burton bamboozles everyone by swapping sides again and again as he both explains and unravels the plot. That section has more in common with Sleuth than it does The Dirty Dozen.

Where Eagles Dare by Alistair Maclean, First Edition - AbeBooks Where Eagles Dare by Alistair Maclean, First Edition - AbeBooks

However, nowadays I find all such stories shallow, the adventure rather juvenile and the Anglo-centric view a bit nauseating. Hence the three stars. The War Movie Buff: BOOK/MOVIE: Where Eagles Dare (1967/1968)". 29 July 2015. Archived from the original on 21 October 2018 . Retrieved 21 October 2018. The story isn't all that realistic.A team of British commandos disguised as Germans, paracahutes into a German stronghold to rescue an American officer.The real mission is more complex.

Mary we are told near the end is an experienced and resourceful spy, in another chapter we are told she knows how to act "professional" but throughout the book she spends more time mooning over the excessively unlikeable Smith than doing anything else. She does beat up ne female and of course ridiculously attractive spy from the other side which is nice (?). He of course does not return the favour and with his hyper-masculine attitude and stiff upper lip gives no indication that he even likes her until suddenly at the end he demands (right verb I am afraid) to marry her. I have not read the book... well.. let's say 20 years.. it was still amusing, tense and exciting, even though there were some OTT moments.

favourite film aged 12: Where Eagles Dare - The Guardian My favourite film aged 12: Where Eagles Dare - The Guardian

Sadly being young girls we were more interested in school stories, June and Schoolfriend, Schoolgirls, those tales of War bored us to tears.

Where Eagles Dare: Logline

We are all brave men and we are all afraid, and what the world calls a brave man, he too is brave and afraid like the all rest of us. Only he is brave for five minutes longer.” Where Eagles Dare - Memorabilia UK". Archived from the original on 10 October 2022 . Retrieved 21 October 2018. The author fails to develop interest in the protagonist and makes the reader anticipate more appearances from the other characters in the book which the author inadvertently gives a lovable characteristic traits at the start of the book.