WHERE EAGLES DARE (1968) ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢
D: Brian G. Hutton
Richard Burton, Clint Eastwood, Mary Ure,
Michael Hordern, Patrick Wymark, Anton Diffring,
Donald Houston, Ingrid Pitt, Derren Nesbitt
Equipped with enough dynamite to level Austria and enough ammo to wipe out the German army, Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood stage a commando assault on a heavily fortified castle high in the Alps. An action-packed World War Two adventure with a plot that's complex to the point of self-parody. There are double agents and triple agents, and nobody seems to know what the hell's going on except Burton, whose straight-faced performance could be either tossed-off or tongue-in-cheek, and is probably a little of both. You can't take it seriously for a second, but as guilty pleasures go, it's a great one, for its sheer preposterousness, its star power, its stunt work, and the record-breaking amount of ordnance involved.
Ingrid Pitt
(1937-2010)
