The Eagle Has Landed (1976)

User Rating:

6.9/10   

Director:

John Sturges

Writers:

Tom Mankiewicz (screenplay)
Jack Higgins (novel)

Release Date:

25 December 1976 (Finland)

Genre:

Adventure | War | Drama

Tagline:

In 1943 sixteen German paratroopers landed in England. In three days they nearly won the War.

Plot:

Oberst Steiner, a German parachute unit commander, is sent to England on a covert mission to kidnap...

Plot Keywords:

Parachute | Winston Churchill | Magnifying Glass | Cigarette Smoking | Heinrich Himmler

Cast

Michael Caine	...	Colonel Kurt Steiner
Donald Sutherland	...	Liam Devlin
Robert Duvall	...	Colonel Max Radl
Jenny Agutter	...	Molly Prior
Donald Pleasence	...	Heinrich Himmler
Anthony Quayle	...	Admiral Canaris
Jean Marsh	...	Joanna Grey
Sven-Bertil Taube	...	Capt. Hans von Neustadt
John Standing	...	Philip Verecker
Judy Geeson	...	Pamela Verecker
Treat Williams	...	Capt. Harry Clark
Larry Hagman	...	Col. Clarence E. Pitts
Alexei Jawdokimov	...	Corpral Kuniski
Richard Wren
Michael Byrne	...	Karl

Runtime:

135 min | Germany:125 min (25 fps) (TV version) | UK:145 min (25 fps) (extended version) | USA:123 min | USA:131 min (DVD version)

Country:

UK

Language:

English | German | Polish

Color:

Black and White | Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.20 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (35 mm prints) | 70 mm 6-Track (70 mm prints) | 4-Track Stereo (some 35 mm prints) (London premiere print)

Certification:

Iceland:12 | West Germany:16 (f) | Australia:PG | Finland:K-16 | Netherlands:16 | Norway:16 (1977) | Singapore:PG | Sweden:15 | UK:15 (video rating) (1986) | UK:A (original rating) | USA:PG

Filming Locations:

Berkshire, England, UK

Company:

Associated General Films

Trivia:

This is the final film directed by John Sturges.

Goofs:

Anachronisms: When Steiner kills one of the guards towards the end of the film, he impersonates a callsign called "Delta 2". The NATO alphabet that used that term for D ("Delta") was not adopted until 1956. The WW2 callsign would have been "Dog 2"

Quotes:

[first lines]
Narrator: [WWII News Story] September 12, 1943, German paratroopers snatched Mussolini from his mountaintop prison in Italy.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "I'm Alan Partridge: Basic Alan (#1.4)" (1997)

Strong Second Half Saves Boring First Hour

I almost gave up on this film after the first hour. It was just too slow for me and I was having difficulty picking up some of dialog with the foreign accents (no subtitles are offered on the DVD).

However, once the "invasion" started the film was very interesting. The only ridiculous part was the role played by Larry Hagman. Liberal Hollywood loves to portray every Southerner as a gung-ho, out-of-control military freak. If I was from the South, I would have been highly offended at this stereotype.

What's really different about this film is that it's a World War II story told from the German side where the Germans are pictured as humane people. You don't see that too much from English-speaking filmmakers.

Michael Caine is the most likable of these people, one of those given the assignment of kidnapping Winston Churchill (interesting premise, off the best- selling book by Jack Higgins). Donald Sutherland plays an Irishman recruited to help in the kidnapping and he's fun to watch.

This is really a man's movie, something like "The Guns Of Navarone," but they inserted Jenny Agutter in here to give the viewers a pretty face and some romance, even though it has absolutely no bearing on the story.

Robert Duvall, Jean Marsh, Treat Williams, Donald Pleasance and Anthony Quayle are some of the other "name" actors who contribute. All in all, a pretty good movie if you can get by that first hour!