Where Eagles Dare

Where Eagles Dare is a 1968 war film directed by Brian G. Hutton and starring Richard Burton, Clint Eastwood and Mary Ure. It follows a joint British-American Special Operations Executive team of paratroopers raiding a castle (shot on location in Austria and Bavaria). It was filmed in Panavision using the Metrocolor process, and was distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Alistair MacLean wrote the screenplay, his first, at the same time that he wrote the novel of the same name. Both became commercial successes. The film involved some of the top filmmakers of the day and is considered a classic. Hollywood stuntman Yakima Canutt was the second unit director and shot most of the action scenes; British stuntman Alf Joint doubled for Burton in many sequences, including the fight on top of the cable car; award-winning conductor and composer Ron Goodwin wrote the film score; and future Oscar-nominee Arthur Ibbetson worked on the cinematography. Plot In the winter of 1943–44, U.S. Army Brigadier General George Carnaby, a chief planner for the Western Front, is captured by the Germans and taken for interrogation to Schloß Adler, a mountaintop fortress accessible only by cable car. A team of seven Allied Special Operations Executive commandos, led by British Major John Smith of the Royal Engineers and U.S. Army Ranger Lieutenant Morris Schaffer, is briefed by Colonel Turner and Vice Admiral Rolland of MI6. Disguised as Wehrmacht mountain troops, they are to parachute into the German Alps, enter the castle, and rescue Carnaby before the Germans can interrogate him. After their transport plane drops them off, Smith secretly meets with agent Mary Ellison, with whom he is in a relationship, and his contact Heidi Schmidt. Heidi has arranged for Mary, posing as her cousin Maria, to work temporarily at the castle so the commandos can gain access.