Sat 11 Jan 2025
A Movie Review by Jonathan Lewis: THE EIGER SANCTION (1975).
Posted by Steve under Suspense & espionage films[9] Comments
THE EIGER SANCTION. Universal Pictures, 1975. Clint Eastwood, (Jonathan Hemlock), George Kennedy, Vonetta McGee, Jack Cassidy. Based on the novel by Trevanian. Directed by Clint Eastwood.
There’s the visual of a man walking through the streets of Zurich, encountering another man who hands him something, and then making his way back to his apartment. Where he is promptly killed by an assassin.
So begins The Eiger Sanction, a rather dated mid-1970s spy film directed by, and starring, Clint Eastwood. He portrays Jonathan Hemlock, an art professor and a retired killer for the government brought back into service to avenge the aforementioned Zurich murder of an American spy. It all sounds rather exciting on paper, but unfortunately the decidedly uneven pace of the movie makes it very difficult to stay fully engaged throughout the proceedings.
That’s not to say that the movie is without its merits. One of the best things the film has going for it is its ensemble of oddball characters, misfits all, who work for C-2, a fictional spy agency tasked with double crosses, assassinations, and other dirty business.
Leading the outfit is an albino ex-Nazi who goes by the name “Dragon” (Thayer David). There’s also his assistant Pope (Gregory Walcott) and a Black agent named (I kid you not) Jemima Brown (Vonetta McGee). And even though he may not be fully integrated with C-2, there’s also the smarmy and effeminate killer Miles Mellough (Jack Cassidy). All of these characters are one of a kind and will be rightfully remembered long after the plot is forgotten.
What attracted viewers to The Eiger Sanction, however, was neither the cast nor the plot, but the action sequences. Yes, this is the one where Eastwood goes mountain climbing. It’s breathtaking, to be sure. But it’s not enough to overcome the movie’s weak points.
What else? George Kennedy plays an important role in the film as Eastwood’s climbing instructor, but since I don’t want to give away spoilers, I’ll just say that his character is pivotal to the story’s ultimate outcome.
My overall assessment is that this Eastwood outing tried too hard to make Clint the epitome of an affected 1970s cool and thus unintentionally relegated its status to being very much of that era. Hence, dated.

January 12th, 2025 at 6:40 am
I kind of enjoyed it, in a dumb-movie way, but I didn’t respect myself afterwards.
January 12th, 2025 at 8:49 am
This is an old fave of mine which I’m familiar with almost frame by frame. Like every other Clint film, it was a staple in my household growing up.
We kids could all quote scenes from ‘Eiger’ as eagerly as we rattled-off Clint-quips from his other, better works (Josey Wales, in particular –perhaps the Clintessential Clint showcase).
In retrospect, appraising this silly man-child movie with a more adult eye? I concur it is reedy, threadbare, rickety. Weak on forethought; not enough premeditation. Eastwood playing up to James Bond crosses into hokum.
The screenplay and the direction both interpret the source material as little else besides husky, beefy, over-stuffed, John Wayne-isms.
Does Trevanian’s original novel warrant this nutty adaptation? I would say, nay. Trevanian was a twisted, fervent, but ultimately satisfying author of icy spy narratives.
I wish he was reviewed more frequently on mysteryfile and other sites. His ‘Hemlock’ concept is nimble enough to merit closer attention, and this WarnerBros release is an unfair dumbing-down of his exotic ideas.
Nevertheless –despite the film’s embarrassing distortions –the flick is quite well-executed. Political insensitivity aside, Eastwood was already demonstrating confident grasp of story mechanics.
He was already assembling a little stock company of favored buddies.
Was it Clint’s 3rd directorial outing? His 4th? Whichever, the results possess spirit and zest; brisk pace; he-man dialogue; savory photography, and sparkling character conflict.
The hijinks are just ludicrous, sleazy, trashy, and fun. Jack Cassidy’s clownish performance as a former Special Forces soldier turned Rip-Taylor type contract killer is unabashedly hilarious.
Yes, mountaineering movies have improved since this movie was released —-and Clint portraying an art historian is far from his best performance –but I’d still discreetly insert this DVD on my Clint shelf, unobtrusively somewhere down maybe three-quarters along, after the rest of his other more prominent successes.
In sum: can’t throw this baby out with the bathwater!
January 12th, 2025 at 10:31 am
Nice job, as always, Jonathan. I found the film disappointing years ago, but in fairness need to revisit it. Funny that this should run just as I’m submitting my post that includes Thayer David’s one outing as Nero Wolfe…
January 12th, 2025 at 4:37 pm
Two things I remember about the movie which stuck with me are the visual of Eastwood and Kennedy on top of the butte (and wondering why they would climb it) and the young girl student saying to the professor (Eastwood) that she would do “anything” for a better grade and him telling her, after asking if she will be home and alone that night that she had better get home and study her “behind” off
January 12th, 2025 at 9:04 pm
I remember watching The Eiger Sanction in a crowded movie theater. But, the last time Diane and I went to our AMC theater, we were the only ones watching the movie. Times have changed…
January 12th, 2025 at 9:52 pm
“Times” may have changed, (whatever that truly means) but Eastwood’s solid resolve stands firm amidst the zany tumult. He’s a traditionally-minded director amid a whirlwind of foppish, modern-day fads. What does that eke him? Multiple academy awards.
January 12th, 2025 at 11:40 pm
Trevanian (Rod Whitaker a professor at the University of Texas) hated this film. Not only did someone die pointlessly making it filming the mountain climbing scenes so that he refused to describe one action scene in SHIBUMI fearing someone be hurt filming it if it were made into a film, but he was also entirely turned off by Eastwood having written the character of Jonathan Hemlock with Paul Newman in mind and finding, with me and most of the audience who read the novel, Eastwood completely miscast as the coldly aesthetic Hemlock who kills so he can afford to buy fine art protecting it from the view of barbarians who can’t appreciate it.
With the exception of Jack Cassidy, who steals the scenes he is in, the film is flat, badly miscast, tired, poorly directed (Eastwood went on to do much better) and misses almost the entire point of the book and its anti-hero protagonist.
The film takes something dead serious Trevanian meant to be the blackest of black humor Eastwood and the screenwriters not getting the point at all or choosing to ignore it and make a humorless action movie.
The film was a critical and financial flop not too surprisingly which probably came as some consolation to Whitaker after his book was butchered. Though he wrote a number of bestsellers following this none of them were filmed leading me to wonder if this killed studio interest or if he refused to sell the options becaue of it.
Re Clint, even John Ford and Hitchcock had a few stinkers. Bad films happen to good even to great directors, look at Coppola’s latest.
January 14th, 2025 at 1:58 pm
@#7
I dunno. It’s like the ‘ole saying about pizza: even bad pizza, is still good pizza.
Similarly: no devoted Eastwood fan I’ve ever run across, hates ‘Eiger’.
It’s made to please fans of Eastwood; there’s no other reason to admire the thing.
I’m not surprised critics panned it. But the only critics who matter in a case like this are the ones biased in favor of Eastwood.
That’s who the movie is for. Eastwood fans. No one else would care.
The flick doesn’t fit any other parameter. It’s a dog by any other measure.
Weak in every other way, except high quotient of Eastwood quips and numerous Eastwood beatdowns.
Apart from ‘Thunderbird & Lightfoot’ –I agree that Eastood wasn’t up to delivering comedy at this stage of his career. He hadn’t hooked up with orangutans yet.
But Eastwood fans laugh at ‘Eiger’ for the same reason they laugh at him & Clyde. The storyline is preposterous, but at least its different than “man-with-no-name” or “Dirty Harry”.
Eiger is a welcome respite from gunslinging and criminal justice. Instead, we get the Matterhorn and yodeling.
I mean in one scene, Hemlock actually disguises himself with a swishy lisp during one of his sanctioned killings. What else can one do but laugh at it? Eastwood lisping?
Yep, he’s miscast but that’s why it earns a 3/4 slot from the end on my shelf. Practically every scene in the flick has ‘Clint being Clint’.
Newman: I’m trying to imagine Paul Newman as Hemlock. Newman probably would have smirked boyishly through the role as he did ‘MacKintosh Man’ and it would all have turned out a lot lighter. Better? Not sure. I’d never sit through another viewing of ‘Mackintosh Man’.
Flop: I wonder how it did overseas. Either way, I wager ‘Eiger’ was still probably made under budget and made under schedule as all Clint flicks are. And the action scenes don’t fail.
I’d agree that pace is a bit sluggish –but as far as I’m concerned its still good direction.
And structurally, no sins. It follows the pattern of several of his other smash hits.
Eastwood himself has said how good the ’70s were for him mastering his craft.
But okay, if it is truly an unmitigated flop? An embarrassing mistake in every way due to a director who was after all, still just a journeyman?
May be. But some flops can still wind up as cult movies. That’s what I’d consider ‘Eiger’ –gobs of cult appeal, a must-see for ‘Clint completists’.
I’d certainly turn to it a twelfth time before I’d re-run ‘Bronco Billy’ a second time. I’d re-watch it before I’d re-watch ‘Thunderbolt’, or ‘Sudden Impact’, or even ‘Honkytonk Man’.
Pretty girls, mountain scenery, henchmen attrition. Eastwood beating down every character he comes across. Works for me.
Trevanian: I like his novels and I appreciate his stated intention here (black comedy) but I’m not sure I trust him. He himself bungled badly when he penned ‘The Loo Sanction’ — a truly humorless book.
But what is worse are the politics spouted by his heroes. I can only hope he didn’t actually believe in their jingoism.
Oh well. Just my closing thoughts on ‘Eiger’. Maybe I’m just weird. I’m a fan of almost any early Eastwood flick the same way I’m a fan of WWI dogfight movies. Simply due to a personal bias.
January 14th, 2025 at 11:36 pm
Lazy, that’s as good a piece as any one has ever written about Eastwood in the doldrums.
Good going.