War Stories

Have we got a war movies thread already? Can't find one. Anyway...

Seeing Sharky's new Agutter avatar reminded me that there were supposedly problems on the set of The Eagle Has Landed between John Sturges and Michael Caine. Is there any truth in that? (Wiki refers to the tension, but there's no supporting info.)

Any views on the film itself? For years, The Eagle Has Landed was a regular fixture on British terrestrial TV, but I'm not sure if it ever deserved that status. This site reckons it was one Sturges' best.

It's a pretty awful film. Saw it a few months ago while I was ill on a Saturday. I hadn't properly seen in it full before, and my roommates (my girlfriend and a friend) settled on it. I concluded several things:

- Michael Caine can't do accents, especially German ones (see THE LAST VALLEY)

- His "serious" introduction with saving the Jewish girl doesn't gel with the rest of the movie

- Jenny Agutter the best thing in it, and has two of the beautiful eyes (and tits) ever

- Donald Pleasance steals his scenes as Adolf

- Lalo Schifrin's score doesn't work, though the cimbalom is always nice

- Donald Sutherland is entertaining, but in the wrong film

- By 76, John Sturges was past it

- Lots of camp blond Nazis

- It's a load of dated, schizophrenic rubbish

The central criticism of Jack Higgins's novel was the same as that directed against Frederick Forsyth's The Day of the Jackal: - that the outcome was already known. The reader knows that Churchill and de Gaulle lived, so how there be any narrative tension?

I'm not sure the two are so easily comparable. While there were numerous assassination attempts on de Gaulle (i.e. Jean Bastien-Thiry) from the OAS and lone gunmen, there was no Nazi invasion of Ireland, which is what EAGLE's plot hinges around.

For me the film's issues lie with a lack of tension and inconsistent tone.

Sharky wrote:

I'm not sure the two are so easily comparable. While there were numerous assassination attempts on de Gaulle (i.e. Jean Bastien-Thiry) from the OAS and lone gunmen, there was no Nazi invasion of Ireland, which is what EAGLE's plot hinges around.

For me the film's issues lie with a lack of tension and inconsistent tone.

What? I've not read Higgin's novel, but the film has no invasion of Ireland. It is true, however, that ostensibly neutral Ireland had great sympathy for Nazi Germany.

Erica Ambler wrote:

Sharky wrote:

I'm not sure the two are so easily comparable. While there were numerous assassination attempts on de Gaulle (i.e. Jean Bastien-Thiry) from the OAS and lone gunmen, there was no Nazi invasion of Ireland, which is what EAGLE's plot hinges around.

For me the film's issues lie with a lack of tension and inconsistent tone.

What? I've not read Higgin's novel, but the film has no invasion of Ireland.

Looked it up. Alderney.... right. I must have been confused by all the misplaced Celtic accents.

Erica Ambler wrote:

It is true, however, that ostensibly neutral Ireland had great sympathy for Nazi Germany.

Yep. Denying non-Roman Catholic refuges fleeing Nazi Germany, the IRA's fruitless attempts to gain weaponry from the Third Reich and their collaborations with Abwehr, Douglas Hyde's visit to Hempel after Hitler's death etc.

My paternal grandfather (hailed from Dunkineely) hated de Valera with a passion, and went to serve with the British army in El Alamein, Belsen and Palestine.

Most damaging was de Valera sending his condolences to the German people after Hitler topped himself.

Little known is that Churchill promised Ireland a united state if British ships could use Irish ports. Éamon told Winston to go fek himself.

He was a coward of a man. If I had a time machine, I'd go and try to de Valera instead of Uncle Adolf. A bit more pragmatic, really.

Great Eire's allied support added up to just letting a few anti-sub planes fly over Donegal. Thankfully, only 50 Irishmen enlisted in the SS. All of them POWs, and C***S.

Lots of decent Irishmen like your grandfather joined the British to fight fascism. The survivors were treated like lepers when they returned to Ireland.

That's not even mentioning the standard Catholic-Protestant divide. When my grandfather once asked for a direction in the South, the "gentleman" asked if he was Catholic or Protestant. My grandfather told him, and he got spat in the face.

Yes, it's insane.

Interesting campaign going on here:

http://www.forthesakeofexample.com/Notices.htm

Quote :

In support of pardons for servicemen who allegedly deserted the Irish Defence forces during world war two to fight fascism and whom in August 1945 were dismissed en masse and in absentia by the Irish government through the introduction of legislation in Dail Eireann pursuant to Emergency Powers Order (No 362) 1945.

Terrible. A national betrayal, perhaps only overshadowed by the reaction to Vietnam vets.

Yeah, I see what you mean, but who would have thought you could be pilloried for fighting Nazis?

It's "the enemy of my enemy is a friend" syndrome. Never works in the long term.