The second of ten films on the Clint Eastwood BluRay Collection I watched is the oldest one of Eastwood's featured in this set with 1968's Where Eagles Dare. The first film I blogged about in this collection was Gran Torino, click here for said blog in case you missed it. I was a little trepid going into this film, mostly due to it being 45 years old and thinking it would not hold up with today's standards. Thank goodness that is (mostly)not the case.
Easiest way to explain this film is a tamer, less crazy version of Inglorious Basterds. Eastwood is not the lead in this film, that goes to Richard Burton who is the major of a squad of allied troops infiltrating a Nazi base to rescue a POW. Eastwood is a Lieutenant from America in this rescue squad, and he plays well off Burton. The first 40 to 45 minutes seemed standard fare for WWII films. Rescue squad lands in Germany disguised as Nazi soldiers, and the rest of the film is them trying to keep their cover while pursuing their mission. Things take a major turn when Eastwood and Burton get separated from the rest of the squad early on and sneak into the base where they believe the POW is residing.
This is where the film transforms into all kinds of crazy. In one extraordinarily long, but entertaining scene, Burton's character goes on a crazy long diatribe exposing agents, double agents, maybe even triple agents....I lost track. The scene goes on forever, but it was instantly go down as one of the all time classic scenes in cinematic history. After this awesome expose, the last 45 minutes of the film is another drawn out, but equally entertaining escape the hell out of Nazi Germany before everything goes to hell act. And in the end, to top off an already delicious cake, Burton's character exposes one more traitor for good measure in the closing minutes.
Not until about a half hour to 40 minutes in did Where Eagles Dare have its hooks in me. Only parts of the film that took me out of the moment were some extremely outdated gunfights during the escape scenes where Eastwood and Burton seem to have a little too easy of a time against vastly outnumbered Nazis that make the unbelievable one many army Stallone and Arnold 80s action films seem realistic by comparison. That aside, this was a blast to watch. Eastwood may take a bit of a backseat in this film, but he has a great supporting role and provides a powerful badass presence behind Burton's quick wit. In case you are wondering it is only available on Netflix through disc, and not streaming.
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