The Eagle Has Landed (1976)
Country: GB
Technical: col/scope 135m
Director: John Sturges
Cast: Michael Caine, Donald Sutherland, Robert Duvall, Jenny Agutter, Donald Pleasence, Jean Marsh, Judy Geeson
Synopsis:
In 1943 a German paratroop colonel is sent with his men from the Channel Islands to a coastal village in southern England, dressed as Allied troops. There, in collusion with an IRA spy, they are to coincide with a visit by Winston Churchill to a nearby manor so that he can be assassinated.
Review:
Sturges' last film is also one of the last of the great Second World War hokum adventure-thrillers (Where Eagles Dare etc.). Notwithstanding the occasional recourse to cliché, it deploys its cast well and adds nuance to the Went the Day Well?-style impact of the enemy presence among the locals: a conflicted sense of shared humanity, rather than straightforward hatred. The result is that you almost want the commandos to succeed, and there is still a certain frisson to be had from the sight of Nazi uniforms in an idyllic English village.
Country: GB
Technical: col/scope 135m
Director: John Sturges
Cast: Michael Caine, Donald Sutherland, Robert Duvall, Jenny Agutter, Donald Pleasence, Jean Marsh, Judy Geeson
Synopsis:
In 1943 a German paratroop colonel is sent with his men from the Channel Islands to a coastal village in southern England, dressed as Allied troops. There, in collusion with an IRA spy, they are to coincide with a visit by Winston Churchill to a nearby manor so that he can be assassinated.
Review:
Sturges' last film is also one of the last of the great Second World War hokum adventure-thrillers (Where Eagles Dare etc.). Notwithstanding the occasional recourse to cliché, it deploys its cast well and adds nuance to the Went the Day Well?-style impact of the enemy presence among the locals: a conflicted sense of shared humanity, rather than straightforward hatred. The result is that you almost want the commandos to succeed, and there is still a certain frisson to be had from the sight of Nazi uniforms in an idyllic English village.
Country: GB
Technical: col/scope 135m
Director: John Sturges
Cast: Michael Caine, Donald Sutherland, Robert Duvall, Jenny Agutter, Donald Pleasence, Jean Marsh, Judy Geeson
Synopsis:
In 1943 a German paratroop colonel is sent with his men from the Channel Islands to a coastal village in southern England, dressed as Allied troops. There, in collusion with an IRA spy, they are to coincide with a visit by Winston Churchill to a nearby manor so that he can be assassinated.
Review:
Sturges' last film is also one of the last of the great Second World War hokum adventure-thrillers (Where Eagles Dare etc.). Notwithstanding the occasional recourse to cliché, it deploys its cast well and adds nuance to the Went the Day Well?-style impact of the enemy presence among the locals: a conflicted sense of shared humanity, rather than straightforward hatred. The result is that you almost want the commandos to succeed, and there is still a certain frisson to be had from the sight of Nazi uniforms in an idyllic English village.