Thu 8 Oct 2015
A Movie Review by David Vineyard: THE EIGER SANCTION (1975).
Posted by Steve under Action Adventure movies , Reviews[5] Comments
THE EIGER SANCTION. Universal Pictures, 1975. Clint Eastwood, George Kennedy, Vonetta McKee, Thayer David, Jack Cassidy, Heidi Brul. Screenplay by Hal Dresher, Warren B. Murphy, and Rod Whitkaker based on the latter’s novel as Trevanian. Directed by Clint Eastwood.
On paper this sounds like a dream project; in reality it is a total mishmash, devoid of suspense or much in the way of humanity, and famously hated by its own writer, University of Texas professor Rod Whitaker writing as Trevanian who actually worked on the screenplay, to the point he wrote a footnote complaining about it in his bestselling novel Shibumi. To add insult to injury, it was a critical and box office failure that pleased no one watching it or involved in making it, and cost a man his life.
Ironically the film is almost slavishly faithful to the plot of the novel it is based on, about art professor Jonathan Hemlock (Clint Eastwood), a freelance government assassin who kills to pay for additions to his art collection under the aegis of a loathsome albino government functionary called Dragon (Thayer David). In Sanction he is given the commission to kill a traitor who will be one of the members on an attempt to climb the notorious north face of the Eiger in Switzerland, a job Hemlock as a world class Alpinist is ideally suited for, having been the only survivor of an earlier unsuccessful attempt to reach the summit.
Although it comes late in the 60s and 70s spy craze, it was based on a huge bestseller, had a popular star and gifted director, and the screenwriters included the author as well as Destroyer co-creator and suspense novelist Warren B. Murphy (who died only recently). There is even a score by John Williams.
None of that mattered.
The film falls flat on Clint Eastwood’s deadpan face.
First there is the matter of casting, and it is a major problem. Whatever his gifts, George Kennedy was not subtle on screen and even though his role as Hemlock’s friend and trainer would seem ideal for him, he plays it so heavy-handedly that he kills every word of dialogue he speaks. Then add Jack Cassidy as a murderous homosexual played just to the right of outright camp, and Vonetta McKee and Heidi Brul as the least attractive and appealing female leads you can imagine — in a film where their roles could have been written out entirely without harming the plot — and you have a huge chunk of the problem.
Then there is Clint Eastwood himself.
Eastwood is a man of rare talent and taste, but the role of Jonathan Hemlock was created with Paul Newman in mind, and at this point in his career Eastwood’s skills as a director and an actor simply were not up to the role of an existentialist Nietzschean with a nihilist streak who kills so he can possess art he feels is too good to be viewed by an unappreciative public. The role desperately needs an actor whose face could give humanity to the cold and unappealing character, not Eastwood whose youthful face made Rushmore look expressive. No one was willing to accept him in that role, and he himself seems deeply uncomfortable playing it.
He may have seen Hemlock as another of his cool headed killers like the man with no name and Harry Callahan, but that isn’t who the character was, and Eastwood’s wrongheaded casting of himself is made worse by his own direction, which lacks any real suspense, with the mountain climbing sequences the only moments the film even vaguely breathes.
There is also a bit of irony, that which was chillingly bitter in the novel just seems callous and psychotic on the screen.
My sympathy is with Professor Whitaker on this one and that footnote I mentioned earlier in Shibumi on this one. It is a flat film that never engages the viewer, marred by not one but five major bits of miscasting and weak direction, and a diffuse script that never becomes cohesive on film. It may well be the worst film of Eastwood’s distinguished career. It is somehow galling if not intolerable that someone actually died to get this film made. I suppose it would not really be more meaningful if it had been a better movie or a good movie, but that the film is this bad and cost a man’s life is somehow even worse.
October 9th, 2015 at 5:22 am
Good points, David. I hate when you come out of a theater wishing you could get those two hours of your life back.
October 9th, 2015 at 3:32 pm
Unlike the book which had mordant wit and sophistication the film is painfully earnest as if Eastwood missed the whole point.
As you said you left the theater feeling you had wasted your time, and frankly knowing a ma m died to film it is disturbing.
October 10th, 2015 at 9:09 pm
Not exactly the finest hour of anyone connected with the movie. Jack Cassidy’s character (the campily-evil gay male) was offensive even 40 years ago when such stereotypes were common; looking at it today, it’s just mind-bogglingly awful. One more reason that this movie has not aged well.
April 30th, 2018 at 1:48 pm
Loathe as I am to lay any disagreement at the door of a longtime movie-goer who routinely views and review movies from cinema history going all the way back to the 1890s…I can raise a number of mild –but still valid–objections to this very negative appraisal of ‘Eiger Sanction’. If no one minds, I will number my points.
1. The film may have done poorly at the box office and with critics at the time but let’s bear in mind that the 1970s were rife with some of the best films Hollywood has ever made. Quality was high and competition was strong; audiences could afford to shrug at this offbeat, somewhat ineffectual thriller. That would have been a fair reaction for the day.
Nevertheless, (and this is my main point) the film has never done poorly with devoted Eastwood fans. I’d comfortably assert that today it is situated very firmly among ‘the canon’ of all his other hits. Why?
2. Because first of all: is there anything objectively wrong with it? No. Are there any glaring mistakes? No. As stated above, the film cleaves more than adequately to the book’s plot.
Eastwood–still a freshman director at the time–didn’t blow it. As far as I can tell, this Malpaso picture came in under budget and on-time, (characteristic of all Eastwood pictures) it made back its costs $9m out to $14m in).
3. Would it have been better had it captured more from the novel besides the plot? Probably not, because Trevanian (a very oddball author) wrote it as a spy-spoof. Asking Clint Eastwood for that kind of slant –that early in his career– would have been far too much.
4. Do we have any right to ask for these other novelistic values the author imbued the novel with? No, I don’t feel we do. Nor does the author himself enjoy this prerogative.
See, once Malpaso bought the book rights it became –purely and simply–an action film. More than that, it became a Clint Eastwood action film–that is, a vehicle for Clint Eastwood.
This movie never had any obligation other than this, owed to Trevanian’s quirky writing style. This project is not Forsyth/Zinneman’s ‘Day of the Jackal’. Its a weirdo novel to begin with and Trevanian is a weirdo author. (Did he insert a footnote about this film in his ‘Shibumi’? If so, that’s just sour grapes. He, his books, and really his whole career don’t exhibit the rectitude he needs in order to behave as this much of a primadonna. His paycheck should’ve more than satisfied him and stilled all his complaints).
5. Was Eastwood’s heart “just not in the project”? Maybe it wasn’t. Although the film was ground-breaking on several points. And bear in mind that he returned to the espionage genre again a few years later with Craig Thomas ‘Firefox’.
Anyway but okay, can we still fault him for his being ill-at-ease with this role? No. His acting doesn’t kill the picture. He gave his usual, very competent, level-best. He wasn’t anything less than Eastwood; (whether or not it worked as well as we might have hoped).
[But why should anyone have harboured such hopes? That’s what I want to know. Eastwood at this point in his career was as notorious as Bronson, for his stone-face and lack of expressivity.]
All Eastwood had to do here was just be Eastwood. Just be a tough-guy. And remember, along with him in this venture were a lot of skilled, highly-talented people. The movie had a fair chance of being a hit regardless of any lack-luster feeling on the part of Clint.
6. This brings us to the question of ‘mis-casting’. The way I feel about it, I’d watch Eastwood and/or Eastwood and George Kennedy together or separately in anything. They were workhorses of that era. And they’re both just great stars. Was Kennedy heavy-handed? Perhaps. Perhaps not. It’s not enough to damn the film. These two stars have fine chemistry, no matter what.
The supporting cast admittedly drab, but at least one of them (Gregory Wolcott) went on to become part of the Malpaso stable. The others? Slightly miscast, maybe… but none of them flubbed their performances.
p.s. Vonetta McGee, dowdy? No worse than Stella Garcia (‘Joe Kidd’) or Susan Clark ‘Coogan’s Bluff’) or Tyne Daly (‘The Enforcer’). Right?
7. Time to consider now the performance of Jack Cassidy. Professional that he was, I think its safe to say he didn’t come up with the flouncing mannerisms for his character, without agreement from everyone that it was okay to play Milo this way. He read his lines as given in the script. And his character had a “body-builder” partner, too. Should we indemnify that bit-player as well as damning Cassidy?
No. So let it go. It’s not as if cinema was ever free from stereotypes. I don’t even agree with analysing film history with politically-correct spectacles like this. Why harp on this and at the same time ignore the innovation of the black female lead? That should balance things out, right? For the year this movie was made?
Wrapping this all up.
8. I’d next ask everyone this (because I’m circling back around to my main point here): even if all the faults raised in the OP’s review could be objectified, does that make this a terrible Eastwood movie?
I’d aver that it doesn’t. I stated this above and I’ll state it again: its a fine Eastwood movie and its not any less because it doesn’t capture all the cumbersome nuances of Trevanian’s original prose.
Should the film been more faithful to the novel over-and-above just being faithful to the plot? No. The subtle aspects of this book weren’t worth massive extra effort, they can be regarded as impractical to film.
Does the film work as an Eastwood movie? Yes, certainly. It isn’t ‘Bridges of Madison County’.
Just examine (fairly) at how the screenplay bridges the gap between the novel and Eastwood’s typical action-movie style. Why is this flick still fun for true Eastwood fans? What are all the good points of this film which the OP fails to list?
I can rattle off what I see:
(a). Superb opening photography of Vienna and evocative Williams score.
(b). Eastwood as art professor, doing a Thomas Crowne role like McQueen.
(c). Eastwood either snubs (or lays) an initial babe before winding up with the babe which is his sexual interest for the majority of the film. It happens here, (Candace Rialson) …it happens all the time in his pictures (just the same way it happens in Bond films too).
(d). Eastwood and Wolcott, their scenes have superb repartee and antagonism. Some of Eastwood’s best-ever tough-guy lines are in this movie. [If you want more Trevanian than Eastwood? This sequence and the following sequence with ‘Dragon’ are fully enough to convey the spirit of the novel’s satire. Possibly maybe even more than the deadpan book, in itself!]
(e). Eastwood as Hemlock, himself, sanctions an enemy using another pointedly gay stereotype in the first third of the movie. (So we can hardly blame Jack Cassidy!)
(f). Vonetta McGee not sexy enough? Okay so then what about Brenda Venus who plays the Native American Indian? That’s right, a Native American Indian is also in the forefront of this plot. (And you could hardly tell that from the novel, believe me).
(g). Superb training-camp sequence between Eastwood and Venus.
(h). Hilarious chemistry and repartee between Eastwood and Kennedy.
At this point we’re halfway through the movie and its been a flat-out Clint-fest for Eastwood fans. Nothing less.
And what is the rest of the movie?
(i). *Incredible* mountaineering scenes set in Monument Valley.
(j). *Fantastic* mountaineering scenes set in Switzerland.
I would humbly rest my case here except for one more minor item. This business about ‘a man died during the making of this film’. To my way of thinking, this statement really doesn’t belong in anyone’s movie review. It’s out-of-place and riddled with flaws to even mention. Its inserting one’s subjective opinions into the mouth of someone deceased. I was pretty startled to read such a thing.
Summary: granting that all of the faults listed in the OP’s review, still I ask: what are we left with? I’d watch ‘Eiger’ again any day. Its far from a dog; its far from shabby. And I’ve never known a single Eastwood fan that felt any different than I do about it.
I thank the OP and the site host for receiving my comments on this matter and hope I haven’t caused anyone any offense. I rarely intrude on proceedings around here, but felt this film needed speaking up for!
April 30th, 2018 at 8:00 pm
And thanks for doing so. Glad to have your input!