Where Eagles Dare has a unique position among World War II movies: It is almost universally loved while significantly lacking the historical accuracy or realism that many fans of the genre almost universally demand. It calls the entire framework for judging this genre into question because it is both glaringly unrealistic and immensely entertaining.

Many people love it because they grew up watching it, and it’s an indelible part of their childhood. At one point Clint Eastwood (Kelly’s Heroes) holds off swathes of Germans in a hallway, armed only with one MP-40 (well, sometimes two). I reenacted that sequence countless times in my childhood home, and I kind of want to now, but I don’t have an appropriate hallway.

This hallway defense is not realistic–though he does reload his weapon (Just because it’s not always shown, doesn’t mean he doesn’t do it, and he is sometimes shown doing it, and at least he shows us the courtesy of carrying extra magazines). He throws back a number of German grenades, kills innumerable Germans (someone did count; it is reportedly the most people a Clint Eastwood character has killed in a movie) and himself maybe scrapes a knuckle.

I love this scene in a very testosterone-filled and childish way, but it isn’t particularly indicative of the kind of thing that happens in combat, though as I type this I am reminded of the church defense in Anthropoid, which is based on an actual defense of a church and has many Germans who seem kind of bad at attacking; however, Eastwood kills exponentially more Germans than the partisans in Anthropoid, who also hold high ground.

The phrase “Broadsword calling Danny Boy” is a rallying cry for fans of this movie (I wrote this before I knew it’s the title of a book about the film or that I could get a t-shirt); star Richard Burton (Desert Rats, The Longest Day) first says this iconic line into a portable radio that successfully transmits from Bavaria to England. Where were these radios in A Bridge too Far? To his credit, Burton uses “over” and “out” correctly while using the magical radio.

A car pushed off a cliff bursts into flame because . . . flames are cool; there’s a post-war helicopter that apparently exists only to be blown up. A Kubelwagen bursts into flames just because someone is shooting at it. One small bundle of TNT sets a block on fire while the German soldiers in this movie make the Star Wars stormtroopers look elite.

Perversely, I am stopping there to avoid spoilers though most of you have watched the film multiple times because you love it. But why do serious war movie enthusiasts forgive the movie its many inaccuracies?

There are two simple reasons. One is that it is cool on a superficial level. Eastwood mows down the many hapless German and looks really cool doing it. Sometimes he’s doing it in a cool bus with a snow plow–sure the bus is a postwar model, but it looks cool. There are a bunch of little bundles of TNT with trip wires that seem cool–and then things blow up. Burton has a cool assurance while he outwits pretty much everyone pretty much all the time. They even get to ride, and fight, on the top of cable cars. I want to ride on the top of a cable car.

The story is also a lot of fun–there is some real tension and a bunch of reversals that lead you to question what’s going on and who is on whose side. After several of these twists Burton’s character, Major Smith, tells Eastwood’s Lieutenant Schaffer, “Lieutenant, in the next fifteen minutes we have to create enough confusion to get out of here alive.”

Shaffer replies, “Major, right now you’ve got me about as confused as I ever hope to be.”

As confusing as it is, Burton’s Smith is always on top of whatever lie or half truth or complete truth he’s saying and has an assured control of the situation that plays well with Eastwood’s quiet and ruthless (and cool) efficiency.

There are also some good performances, besides Burton and Eastwood–who do as much with their characters as humanly possible. Derren Nesbitt, as the gorgeous blonde Gestapo agent, casually interrogates just-arrived spy Mary (Mary Ure) in a bar in a scene Quentin Tarantino must love.

Nesbitt later pulls one of the movies’ many twists off with complete assurance. “Sit down, Colonel” may be one of the lines fans gleefully shout if there are Rocky Horror Picture Show-like watching parties for this film.

Many of the other actors are given very little to work with because they are just pawns Burton gets to wryly and sometimes literally push around the board in his big chess game, but it is a fun game to watch.

Brian Hutton (Kelly’s Heroes) may well be my favorite World War II movie director. This film is well directed and edited. The initial exposition is handled in an interesting way. The music is big and cinematic, but it isn’t too big. However unrealistic or even ridiculous the film may be, it is deeply satisfying on several levels.

Whenever someone says a World War II movie is terrible and then lists its inaccuracies, I want to bring up this movie because the reason the other film (I’m looking at you Pearl Harbor and The Battle of the Bulge) is terrible may in fact be because of the story or the acting or the editing–reasons all sorts of movies are bad. More precisely, the movie itself isn’t good enough for us to suspend our disbelief (or whatever else it is we don’t suspend). We cannot forgive it its inaccuracies because it doesn’t earn our forgiveness. If another film has soldiers carrying the wrong type of Lee Enfield, that’s not enough to damn it; it’s an excuse we use to damn it when it fails to charm or enthrall or excite us in the way Where Eagles Dare does.

Recommendation

You can get Where Eagles Dare by itself, but it also is part of a number of movie packs that are great starter sets for a would-be World War II movie enthusiast.

It also comes in an excellent set for budding Clint Eastwood enthusiasts.

I’ve read the novelization Alistair MacLean wrote after writing the movie’s script. I like the movie better, but it’s still a fun read, and MacLean’s writing style is lean and snappy. There’s also a super-cool new Blu Ray of The Guns of Navarone.