THE EAGLE HAS LANDED (1977)
NOTE: This review refers to the Extended Cut of the film, released in the United Kingdom in Region 2 DVD by Carlton Entertainment.
DIRECTOR:
John Sturges
CAST:
Michael Caine, Donald Sutherland, Robert Duvall, Jenny Agutter, Donald Pleasence, Anthony Quayle, Jean Marsh, Sven Bertil-Taube, John Standing, Treat Williams, Larry Hagman, Judy Geeson, Siegfried Rauch, Michael Byrne, Joachim Hansen, Jeff Conaway, Ferdy Mayne and Wolf Kahler.
REVIEW:
“The Eagle has Landed” is easily one of the most engaging World War II yarns to come out of the 1970s, hampered only by some needless subplots and extraneous characters. The screenplay, direction and suspense are all excellently handled by director John Sturges.
In “The Eagle has Landed”, the Germans are the good guys, and the Americans are the two-dimensional villains-turned-cannon fodder. Himmler (Donald Pleasence, “The Great Escape”) assigns Colonel Radl (Robert Duvall, “Apocalypse Now”) to plan an operation to kidnap Winston Churchill. Radl enlists German paratrooper hero Colonel Steiner (Michael Caine, “Play Dirty”) to lead the mission. IRA man Liam Devlin (Donald Sutherland, “The Dirty Dozen”) jumps in to help the men infiltrate an English village, but soon things get complicated and the mission’s outcome is in serious doubt.
Much like “Where Eagles Dare” and “Desert Commando”, this enthralling adventure is held together by two crucial elements: the first is top-notch acting and the second is a twist-laden, fast-moving story. All weaknesses fade beneath these strengths.
Michael Caine is simply excellent in the lead, although he makes no effort to disguise his thick English accent. He’s an admirable German hero: loyal to his men and not to the Third Reich. Steiner is a loyal German soldier and cannot be called a Nazi. When we first meet him, he and his war-weary, unshaven platoon face off against SS firing squads who are executing Jewish prisoners. He manages to insult their commander, a General (a vicious Joachim Hansen from “The Bridge at Remagen”).
Sutherland gets just as much screen time as the charming Devlin, as he wanders around a small English village paving the way for the incoming German paratroops. This is the only weak part of the story: Devlin has a rather forced and out-of-place English teenager (Jenny Agutter), and the entire subplot is so convoluted and pointless that it either needed to be properly written or cut from the script completely. As it exists, it’s neither naturally developed nor particularly engaging.
Finally, as Radl, Robert Duvall is utterly brilliant. Along with Robert Vaughn in “The Bridge at Remagen” and Hardy Kruger in “The Battle of Neretva”, it’s never really clear whose side Radl is really on. Is he a loyal Nazi, or simply a German patriot? We’re never really sure, but one thing is certain: Radl is the most human character of the bunch. He’s appropriately nervous at times, tender at others.
The ensemble is filled out by a number of strong supporting characters. The best is easily Donald Pleasence as an appropriately spooky Himmler. Pleasence acts with perfect restraint, and his eerie laugh hints that the man is slightly unhinged. Anthony Quayle (“The Guns of Navarone”) is the exact opposite as Admiral Canaris, an openly anti-Hitler officer. Larry Hagman (“The Cavern”) is a lot of fun as the bumbling Colonel Pitts, and Treat Williams lends as hand as his more level-headed exec. A fine host of German actors appear, including Michael Byrne (“Force 10 from Navarone”) as Radl’s young aide; Siegfriend Rauch (“The Big Red One”) as one of Steiner’s best troops; and a young Wolf Kahler appears briefly as an SS officer near the end of the film.
Sturges handles the story nicely, laying out the set pieces carefully in the first act. We know who is on whose side and how events are supposed to play out in advance, so it’s not hard to understand how and why things go wrong at the midpoint. Then the physical action heats up, and Sturges handles the combat scenes with gusto. The ambush of American jeeps is well-handled, with lots of machine-gun fire and jeeps driving into walls and lakes. The American assault on an occupied Catholic Church is also well-handled. The last 15-minutes are laden with twist after twist, keeping the viewer completely glued until an utterly surprising conclusion.
The film makes a great companion piece to “Desert Commando” as the two are similar in many ways. The good guys are Germans in both stories, out to do their job. We see no difference between the German paratroops here and the American “Dirty Dozen” who appeared 10 years earlier. Instead of setting his film in the harsh deserts of North Africa, here we see the beautiful, green English countryside in perhaps the early fall or late spring. Sets of the German E-boat base at Alderney look fresh and accurate, and Lalo Schiffrin provides a fine, rousing score.
“The Eagle has Landed” is tense, well-handled suspense which doesn’t require a lot of thinking and makes for a very enjoyable time-killer. It’s packed with clichés, but the performances are so good and the pace so fast that you won’t care.
RATING:
4 Bullets
