The Clint Eastwood classic that became Steven Spielberg’s favourite war movie
Steven Spielberg made one of the greatest war movies ever in Saving Private Ryan. While his classic was more indebted to realism and authenticity amidst the horrors of war, the director’s favourite film in the genre boasted Clint Eastwood in gun-toting form.
That’s not to say it was an outright flight of fancy that discarded any sense of being grounded and gritty in favour of explosive action sequences and spectacle-driven histrionics. Still, neither is it close to being as traumatising, harrowing, and heart-wrenching as his own seminal contribution to the art of cinematic warfare.
The 1960s was arguably the gold standard for the ‘men on a mission’ trope, with Hollywood overflowing with phenomenal features that gathered together an eclectic ensemble cast, dropped them behind enemy lines, and pitted the heroes against an opposition force so vast and all-encompassing the audience was left gripped to the edge of their seats waiting to see which – if any – of them would make it out alive.
It was the decade that gifted the world with The Magnificent Seven, The Dirty Dozen, The Guns of Navarone, The Wild Bunch, and Hell Is for Heroes, to name just a few. Eastwood shared the screen with another superstar, Richard Burton, when they led their own cabal of misfits into the breach as the main attractions of Brian G Hutton’s Where Eagles Dare.
Burton’s John Smith and Eastwood’s Morris Schaffer lead their men into danger at the height of World War II, with the squad tasked to save a captive American general from a heavily guarded fortress in a Bavarian alpine village that can only be accessed by cable car. There’s only one way in, but given the odds they’re facing, there may not be so much as a single way out.
The story becomes increasingly convoluted as double-crosses, deceit, and imposters begin revealing themselves to an almost preposterous degree, but that’s part of what makes Where Eagles Dare so damned entertaining. That, and the last hour of the runtime, is dedicated almost entirely to a single set piece that may well have inspired Spielberg’s vision for the unforgettable opening scene of Saving Private Ryan.
Taking its cues from cinema’s increasing openness to ratcheting up the violence, Where Eagles Dare channels the spirit of Eastwood’s spaghetti westerns with its preference for a gratuitous blood squib or ten, the final body count sailing past a hundred by the time the credits roll. It was jarring for the time, with Eastwood killing more people in this movie than he does in any other, putting Dirty Harry to shame in the process.
Not to suggest that Spielberg looked at Where Eagles Dare and decided viscera was the order of the day for Saving Private Ryan‘s inimitable D-Day scene, but neither should it be overlooked that the filmmaker named it as his favourite-ever war epic, according to Geoff Dyer. It just so happened to be bloodier and more brutal than any other film of its ilk to have been released at the time of its December 1968 debut and carried a jaw-dropping extended action beat to boot.
Where Eagles Dare never sought to be documentarian or verite in any way, shape, or form, but that doesn’t make it any less worthy of being named among Hollywood’s finest war flicks. Taking pride of place in Spielberg’s list is high praise indeed, and it’s not exactly unmerited.
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