Plot
Inspired by the successful rescue of Benito Mussolini from enemy forces, German Admiral Canaris is ordered to study the feasibility of capturing Winston Churchill. Oberst Radl begins the study despite Canaris' lack of enthusiasm, but on reviewing a routine report from Joanna Grey, a sleeper agent in Norfolk, concludes the plan is not only feasible but imperative. Radl recruits IRA man Liam Devlin to contact the sleeper in England, and selects paratroop colonel Kurt Steiner to lead a platoon of Fallschirmjäger to kidnap or kill the British Prime Minister. Radl finds Steiner and his men in a penal unit on German-occupied Alderney and convinces them to undertake the mission.
Heinrich Himmler reveals to Radl that he has in-depth knowledge of Operation Eagle and presents him a letter of authority, apparently signed by Hitler. The Germans fly to England in a captured RAF plane dressed as Polish paratroopers. They infiltrate the village of Studley Constable with the help of Devlin and Grey. Once the operation is under way, Himmler retrieves the letter from Radl and destroys it, revealing the mission was launched without Hitler's knowledge.
The German paratroopers conduct military exercises in the village but when a young girl is rescued after falling into the village waterwheel, one of Steiner's men is killed and the villagers discover they are really Germans. Steiner's men secure the village and hold the citizens captive in the church, but the vicar's sister escapes and alerts a unit of nearby United States Army Rangers.
Colonel Pitts, the Rangers’ commander, launches a costly assault on the church that fails. Pitts is killed investigating Grey's house, and Grey in turn is killed by Pitts' 1st Sergeant. Captain Harry Clark then launches a better orchestrated assault on the Germans in the village, trapping them in the church. Steiner's men sacrifice themselves to give Devlin, Steiner, and his wounded second-in-command time to escape through a hidden passage. A local girl, Molly Prior, who has fallen for the charming Devlin, helps them escape. Steiner orders his wounded second-in-command to stay on the motor torpedo boat anchored nearby, and infiltrates a nearby manor to kill Churchill.
Radl is arrested on Alderney for exceeding his authority, and executed by firing squad.
When Steiner shoots Churchill outside the manor house and is killed immediately after, Captain Clark learns the victim was actually a body double. The torpedo boat is shown having run aground and Devlin evades capture, leaving a love letter for Molly before slipping away.
Production
Development
In October 1974, Paramount announced they had purchased the film rights to Jack Higgins' The Eagle Has Landed in partnership with Jack Wiener, formerly an executive at Paramount. [3] The book came out in 1975 and was a bestseller, [4] but the author had doubted whether anyone would be interested in making a film of the novel because its protagonists were German soldiers. He was amazed that the rights were not only sold within a fortnight but that the film was brought to production so swiftly. [5]
Casting
Michael Caine was originally offered the part of Devlin but did not want to play a member of the IRA, so asked if he could have the role of Steiner. Richard Harris was in line to play Devlin, but ongoing comments he had made in support of the IRA and attendance at an IRA fundraising event in America embroiled him in scandal and drew threats to the film's producers, so he was removed from the production and Donald Sutherland was given the role instead. [1] [6]
In March 1976, The New York Times announced that David Bowie would play a German Nazi in the film if his schedule could be worked out. [7] Jean Marsh's role was originally offered to Deborah Kerr, who turned it down. [8]
Filming
Filming took place in 1976 over sixteen weeks. [9] Tom Mankiewicz thought the script was the best he had ever written but felt "John Sturges, for some reason, had given up" and did a poor job, and that editor Anne V. Coates was the one who saved the movie and made it watchable. [10]
Michael Caine had initially been excited at the prospect of working with Sturges. During shooting, Sturges told Caine that he only worked to earn enough money to go fishing. Caine wrote later in his autobiography: "The moment the picture finished he took the money and went. [Producer] Jack Wiener later told me [Sturges] never came back for the editing nor for any of the other good post-production sessions that are where a director does some of his most important work. The picture wasn't bad, but I still get angry when I think of what it could have been with the right director. We had committed the old European sin of being impressed by someone just because he came from Hollywood." [11]
Cornwall was used to represent the Channel Islands, and Berkshire for East Anglia. [12] The majority of the film, set in the fictional village of Studley Constable, was filmed at Mapledurham on the A4074 in Oxfordshire and features the village church, as well as Mapledurham Watermill and Mapledurham House, used for a manor house where Winston Churchill is taken. [12] A fake water wheel was added to the 15th-century structure for the film. [12] Mock buildings such as shops and a pub were constructed on site in Mapledurham while interiors were filmed at Twickenham Studios. The "Landsvoort Airfield" scenes were filmed at RAF St Mawgan, five miles (8 km) from Newquay. [12]
The sequence set in Alderney was filmed in Charlestown, near St Austell in Cornwall. [12] Some of the filming took place at Rock in Cornwall. The railway station sequence where Steiner and his men make their first appearance was filmed in Rovaniemi, Finland. [12] The parachuting scenes were carried out by members of the REME (Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers) Parachute Display Team on Wednesday 28 April 1976. The exit shots were filmed from a DC-3 at Dunkeswell Airfield in Devon. The landings onto the beach were filmed on Holkham Beach in Norfolk.
Reception
The film was a success, with Lew Grade saying "it made quite a lot of money". [13] ITC made two more films with the same production team, Escape to Athena and Green Ice . [14] The Eagle Has Landed spent a week as the number one film in the United Kingdom (9 April 1977) and was the fifteenth-most successful film of 1977. [15]
In his review for The New York Times, Vincent Canby called the film "a good old-fashioned adventure movie that is so stuffed with robust incidents and characters that you can relax and enjoy it without worrying whether it actually happened or even whether it's plausible." [2] Canby singled out the writing and directing for praise:
Tom Mankiewicz's screenplay, based on a novel by Jack Higgins, is straightforward and efficient and even intentionally funny from time to time. Mr. Sturges ... obtains first-rate performances building the tension until the film's climactic sequence, which, as you might suspect, concludes with a plot twist. ... With so many failed suspense melodramas turning up these days, it's refreshing to see one made by people who know what they're about. [2]
When another ITC production, March or Die , faltered in US theatres during initial engagements in the fall of 1977, Columbia Pictures repackaged it into a double-feature combo with Eagle for its remaining playdates.
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 71%, based on reviews from 14 critics. [16] Metacritic , which uses a weighted average , assigned the film a score of 61 out of 100, based on 7 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. [17]
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