KAMAD Throwback Thursdays 1975: The Eiger Sanction

Throwback Thursday #TBT

Throwback Thursday on the KAMAD site will be a regular occurrence in the next year. As a motivational project, to make sure I am working on something, even in a week where I don't see a new film in a theater, I am going to post on movies from 1975. Along with 1984, this is one of my favorite years for movies and it is full of bittersweet memories as well. 1975 was my Senior Year in High School and my Freshman Year in College. The greatest film of the last 60 years came out in 1975, as well as dozens of great and not so great cinematic endeavors. Most of the films in this weekly series will have been seen in a theater in 1975, but there are several that I only caught up with later. I hope you all enjoy.

The Eiger Sanction

This is the second time I have written about this film for the blog. The first was on my original Movie a Day project that started the whole blog. "The Eiger Sanction" was number 73 on that summer countdown. As one of the few films on the project from Clint Eastwood, that was not a western, it should stand out a little more. I was probably a little underwhelmed when I wrote about it thirteen years ago because it was a slow burn that took ninety minutes to get to the featured premise of the movie, mountain climbing spy action. 

In filling the time before we actually arrive in Switzerland to ascend the Eiger, there first is a series of scenes and plotlines that feel only slightly connected to the plot. The best is Clint going to Europe to execute one of the killers he has been sent to "sanction". He is Johnathan Hemlock, an executioner for a secret agency known as C-2, that is directed by a mysterious Albino called Dragon. Hemlock wants out and is refusing to continue to work for C-2, but Dragon blackmails him into performing this last sanction by threatening his art collection, which is Hemlock's main motivation for working in the field in the first place. Like Charles Bronson in "The Mechanic", Hemlock appreciates art and music and uses his wealth to acquire a fantastic collection that today would be worth hundreds of millions. 

In my original post I warned that this film might be a little tough for modern audiences to accept. The intervening years have made that even more the case. Hemlock passes himself off at one point as an effeminate delivery man to throw off the prey he is after. When he gets a chance to gain revenge against a former friend who is a raging homosexual by 1970s standards, he is particularly cruel. The name the antagonist has for his dog is not only insensitive but nearly as objectionable as if he had named to dog with the "N" word. Like Ethan Hunt or James Bond, Hemlock ends up in bed with another asset of the company and gets trapped into carrying out an even more elaborate "sanction" of an as yet unidentified counter agent. That woman is named Jemima Brown, and there are plenty of jokes about pancakes and ethnicity. There is an extended sequence of Hemlock training for a climbing expedition, and an attractive woman of Native American heritage becomes a sex object with the added bonus of jokes about Cowboys and Indians. 

A few things that I do want to draw attention to. First of all, the opening section of the film is set in Zurich, as a man drinks his beer next to a canal or river, and then strolls through some older traditional parts of the city to his apartment. All the while, there is no dialogue and the music is by the great John Williams. 

I feel like I have seen a dozen movies from the era that repeat the same kind of sequence at the start. It was a trope of the era and if you listen to the music clip above, you will hear a familiar piano style tune that has been enhanced with some jazz and electronic tools to make it sound more mysterious. It's not a bad thing at all, it just feels overly familiar, although it may not have been so when the film first came out. 

The main reason to see the film is for the suspenseful climbing sequences that take place in the last half hour of the film. The movie was made on location and there are no blue/green screen composite shots in the film. Eastwood did his own climbing in this section as well as some the ascent of the Totem Pole edifice in Monument Valley (although he and George Kennedy were helicoptered to the top and professional climbers did the main ascent). 

On the Eiger, there were dangerous shots that actually lead to some injuries to  a camera operator, and a another climber, helping with camera shots was killed by falling rocks. Eastwood did the ultimate stunt at the end of the film when dangling by a rope several thousand feet above the valley floor. He actually drops when he cuts the rope above him, it is hard to imagine that a movie studio could get insurance for an actor/director in that scenario today (Tom Cruise being the exception maybe). 

The plot gets convoluted as it usually does with a spy film. There are double crosses, mixed motives, and attacks from unanticipated sources around every corner. There is a sense that this is a more serious sort of James Bond film, but then "Dragon" runs the command from his light free subterranean lair, and the other operative we see is an ineffectual lug who has less knowledge of karate than I do. I will say there is one trick I learned from this film. If someone is following to close behind me, instead of tapping the breaks which interferes with my momentum, I sometimes turn on my head lights which activates the rear lights and makes whoever is following, think you are breaking. 

I will recommend the film to those who like a slow burn, a satisfying action climax and don't mind a little 70s sexism and racism spicing up the film.