‘BROADSWORD’ CALLING ‘DANNY BOY’

You know, I started writing this piece, oh, it must be a couple of years ago now, and never got around to finishing it off… Until now, that is, and what could be more appropriate for a Bank Holiday weekend than burbling on about some old war movie that we’ve all had the opportunity to see a dozen times or more, even if some of you will no doubt never have taken the broadcasters up on the opportunity…

There are some films that you know that you really shouldn’t like but you find that, despite yourself, you find that  you do anyway and you really can’t help it. For me, one of those films is “Where Eagles Dare”, the 1968 action movie based upon the Alistair MacLean book, starring Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood in which a captured “American General” and, with him, all of the allied plans for the invasion of Europe, is taken to the Schloss Adler, the most impregnable prison in the Third Reich, a prison considered so impregnable that only eagles would dare to try to reach it. When this happens, a fiendish plot is hatched in London to get the General back, although quite how fiendish the plot is going to get is, at least at first, not really apparent.

Whenever this film happens to appear on television, I’m always drawn in by it because, despite all of the “Boy’s Own Adventure” trappings, there’s a really clever storyline at the heart of it, one which, in a manner completely unlike Clint Eastwood and all of those nasty Nazis he mows down during the film, blew me away the first time I sat down and watched it all the way through, and still amazes me on further viewing…

On paper I shouldn’t like a film like this at all, especially with my record as an artsy-fartsy wet liberal who usually sees the appearance of a helicopter in any movie as a sign that the entire industry has gone to hell in a handcart… After all, there is a quite nasty ruthless streak running through the film which ought to find me sucking at my teeth and crying “shame” and much of it is infected with the kind of nonsense and poppycock that would usually find me reaching for the “off” switch, but it is a quite compelling film, despite the fact that it does even have a helicopter in it…

It shouldn’t have, of course, but that’s probably a point to be addressed at another time…

Because, at it’s heart, however, “Where Eagles Dare” is a caper movie and has a plot that is at the same time so preposterous and yet absolutely watertight and strange incidents in the first half hour of the movie pay off in the final fifteen minutes. Even the fact that they go into a shed and start a bus, and that this bus has a snowplough on the front all becomes vital to the characters as they try to make their escape later, despite being barely remarked upon. It’s a classic example of informing the viewer without drawing attention to it…

As I mentioned earlier, Schloss Adler is a German high security facility that is so remote that “only eagles would dare” to attempt to enter it. A high-ranking American General has been captured and taken there for interrogation and, because he has all the plans for the allied invasion of Europe in his head it is vital that he be got out.

It doesn’t really matter of course… He’s just the “MacGuffin” upon which to hang the complexities of the daredevilry. It doesn’t even matter really, what those plans are or even whether he’s actually a real General. He could just be some lowly G.I. Joe with access to a particular secret, all that matters is that he needs to be got out, and Major Smith and his plucky band of commandos are just the chaps to do it.

It’s really hard to describe what it is that I so enjoy about “Where Eagles Dare” without telling you the whole plot, so instead I’ll just describe a few of the special moments that I remember…

There’s that stunning call-sign catchphrase, of course: “Broadsword calling Danny Boy” which will always draw out another “fan” if you happen to mutter it within their earshot. I think, in all honesty, the movie would find a special place in my heart if it was only because of that, but there’s so much more to enjoy, too.

Quite early on in the film, our heroes Mr Burton and Mr Eastwood have stripped off their winter whites to reveal Nazi uniforms underneath and go for a stroll through the main gate to the army base that services Schloss Adler whilst explaining to each other what’s going on. They barely break step as they greet the officer on guard at the gate and you suddenly realise that you’re supposed to realise that they’ve been talking in fluent German all along.

Derren Nesbitt’s sinister SS officer is a masterclass in building tension as you never know when and if he’s going to burst into a room and allow the entire enterprise to unravel, especially as he seems to be just the sort of suspicious wild card character who might just cause that to happen…

There’s an astonishing exposition sequence slap bang in the middle of the film where many of the plotting and counter-plotting is unravelled like the layers of a particularly complex onion buried inside an orange, all of which exists in a quantum state of probability, and it’s riveting stuff, I can tell you, that has to be seen to be believed…

In some circles, the movie was known as “Where Doubles Dare” but the breathtaking stunt sequences performed on and around the cable cars are still pretty impressive all these years later and you also get to see some of the leading character actors of their day going through their paces and showing you quite why the actors of that generation are still held in such high regard to this day.

Michael Hordern, Peter Barkworth, Donald Houston, Patrick Wymark, William Squire, Robert Beatty, Anton Diffring, and Neil McCarthy, all stalwarts of the kind of telly and film series that I still enjoy so much, all make appearances, as do Ingrid Pitt and Mary Ure, just in case you think that there are no women playing any significant parts in this movie

I will admit that there are moments I don’t like.

The German radio operator who’s just trying to listen to some classical music suffers an unduly nasty and distasteful fate, and do I find and the relentless mowing down of the German troops by Clint and his trusty machine guns does seem rather excessive at times. I mean I know that they’re supposed to be the bad guys, but, much like in the “Indiana Jones” films later, there’s little room for them to be anything other than ciphers, and, as I’ve got older, I have started to wonder more and more about their fictional families waiting for them back home…

Of course in many ways “Where Eagles Dare” is a load of old codswallop filled with historical inaccuracies (that helicopter particularly is very out of place historically speaking…), a ridiculous overblown plot, and cardboard characters straight out of the pages of a cheap thriller, but the plot is so taut that , if you stick with it and pay close attention, everything comes together and makes sense at the end and I just bloody love it.

“Broadsword calling Danny Boy, are you receiving me…? Over.”