The Eagle Has Landed (John Sturges, 1976)

Following the rescue of Mussolini, an official in the Third Reich develops a similar scheme to kidnap British prime minister Winston Churchill during a trip to the southern coast, and spirit him to Germany.

A group of German paratroopers led by Colonel Kurt Steiner (Michael Caine) are charged with accomplishing the mission. 

Will they succeed?

After making my way through the desert of the G.I. Joe franchise (RIP), I felt an itch to watch some old-school war movies. The Eagle Has Landed popped up online, so I checked it out.

I watched this one about 15 years ago. A late entry in the men-on-a-mission strain of WW2 movies, The Eagle Has Landed takes the usual template and flips it, splitting the narrative perspective between the German invaders, their unknowing hosts in the small English village, and the bored American soldiers stationed down the road.

In terms of its point-of-view, it is closer to a film like Day of the Jackal, in which the audience is expected to empathise with the enemy. Unlike the banal sociopath of that movie, Steiner and his men are presented as 'good soldiers', professionals disgusted and disillusioned by the crimes of the Third Reich. 

The film makes it clear that their ultimate loyalty is to each other, a bond forged by years of difficult missions. In terms of archetypes, they are closer to the battle-scarred veterans of a thousand action movies - their cynicism about higher authority (officers, the Reich). 

It is a dark spin on the anti-authoritarianism running through the action movies of the decade, and is probably an offshoot of the myth of the 'clean' Wehrmacht that was popular after WW2. While I questioned the film's portrayal of Steiner and his men, the complicated approach to audience sympathies does make the movie a more interesting watch. 

There is an air of fatalism through the picture that waters down any sugarcoating of the paratroopers  - Steiner and his men are condemned to die for betraying orders. Whether it is by suicide missions on human torpedo boats or as participants in this ridiculous scheme is irrelevant.

While the movie is unique for its splitting of perspectives, if you are familiar with pre-Vietnam Hollywood war movies, it does feel rather familiar in its presentation - Lalo Schifrin's score is light years away from his most familiar work, recalling the scores of Elmer Bernstein. The final credits also feel weirdly out of step with the subject - each player's credit plays over footage of the character from the movie. It might be an intentional playing on conventions. It might be the times in which we live, but I left the movie vaguely disquieted.

The best performance in the film comes from Donald Sutherland (who would go on to play a very different foreign agent in 1981's Eye of the Needle). He plays an Irish republican who is determined to assist any action that will help to liberate his country.

His accent might wander, but Sutherland brings a charm and swagger to the role that makes him the most arresting of the film's anti-villains.

As far as the other characters go, Donald Pleasance is quietly unsettling as the nervy, officious Himmler, and -  in a fun cameo - future Dallas star Larry Hagman plays an over-eager American officer who leads a failed counter-attack on the paratroopers.

If I have one overall complaint, it is pacing. The first hour is ridiculously slow, as we are introduced to the paratroopers, the townsfolk and the Americans. Once the paratroopers' cover is blown, the movie gains pace and suspense, and the film's duelling perspectives become more evident. A movie like this does require a good deal of set-up, but there is a strange lack of tension and energy to the film's first half that almost made me turn off.

If you can get through the opening, The Eagle Has Landed amounts to a unique spin on the 'men-on-mission' genre. I roll my eyes at the virtuousness of its soldier protagonists, but actual mission aspect is very compelling.

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