The Eiger Sanction (1975)

A particularly bad movie, even for the 70's film making. Offensive, misogynistic, racist, homophobic and just plain stupid, start to finish. All the women in this sorry excuse for a movie are dumb bimbos whose sole purpose of existence is to get laid for money. The ongoing jokes about rape, race etc are in very poor taste, if not unacceptable. The script is beyond stupid, the acting terrible. The only redeeming quality of this movie is the scenery, but there's nowhere near enough of it to make you sit through. The attempts at humor are incredibly lame, and Eastwood's "tough" persona gets old really fast. As a Clint Eastwood fan, I found this very disappointing.

An classical art professor and collector (Clint Eastwood), who doubles as a professional assassin, is coerced out of retirement to avenge the murder of an old friend.Early on, we get an excellent cameo from exploitation queen Candice Rialson, posing as a young art student. Throughout the film (especially the first half), we get plenty of great humor and one-liners. Yet, it seems to be a largely forgotten piece of cinema.Joy Gould Boyum of the Wall Street Journal remarked, "The film situates villainy in homosexuals and physically disabled men." That is a gross injustice to the film, even if there is a flamboyant man, a limping fellow and an albino. Moreover, it overlooks the interracial relationship that could be considered progressive.Roger Ebert wrote that the film "has a plot so unlikely and confused that we can't believe it for much more than 15 seconds at a time, but its action sequences are so absorbing and its mountaintop photography so compelling that we don't care." This is quite true. The scenes are beautiful and the plot is a bit bizarre in more than a few places.I think this is one that needs to be re-examined. Eastwood really threw himself into the picture, both directing and starring (and doing his own stunts). The humor and deadpan delivery is excellent, and just the great shots that were achieved deserve some recognition.While as of now (January 2014) the film exists as a widescreen DVD, it would look great on Blu-ray and perhaps it is not too late to get a commentary from Eastwood or others involved in the picture. George Kennedy (now 88) probably has few good years left in him.

The complete lack of political correctness seems to have endeared this film to some and made them overlook its obvious flaws. The characterisation is weak, the plot rambling and the action sequences largely confined to the last and most interesting portion of the film, the only part which actually takes place on the Eiger. It is a pity that the film takes so long to get here and with so many unnecessary digressions (and much silliness), for the mountain sequences (although not as compelling as they could have been) are easily the most convincing part of this so-so thriller.Clint Eastwood plays Hemlock a lecturer with a secret sideline in adventure. In this respect he is like a prototype for Indiana Jones only he's much darker. While Jones merely tries to redeem lost artifacts for the benefits of mankind (and therefore is an unreservedly good character), Hemlock murders people in cold blood to enlarge his own private hoard of expensive artworks. It is therefore difficult to really care whether he succeeds or fails.It actually becomes more difficult to relate to him as the movie progresses. After he leaves his former friend (a camp homosexual wonderfully played by the much missed Jack Cassidy) to die an agonising death in the desert, any sympathy I had for him disappeared. And of course there is the question left 'hanging' (sorry for the pun) at the end as to whether Hemlock has intentionally 'sanctioned' (ie murdered) several innocent people on the Eiger.Apart from such nastiness there is also a great deal of silliness of a formulaic kind. 'Dragon' is Hemlock's boss- he's an albino with an aversion to light who for some inexplicable reason is the head of the American spy network (how did that happen exactly?) He seems to belong to the world of Austin Powers. His sidekick is Pope another crudely drawn caricature. As indeed is Jemima Brown the sort of over-sexed black chick who were frequent in the early 70s blaxplotation cinema. The scenes where she beds Hemlock only to steal his money is one of the many unnecessary detours.

"The Eiger Sanction" (1975) starring Clint Eastwood is a spectacular "mountain movie" of the sort big in 1920's German classic cinema.The famous 1929 German movie titled "The White Hell Of Pitz Palou" (1929 Germany) starring young Leni Riefenshahl directed by Joseph Pabst is an example of German "mountain movies" which always included spectacular camera work recording breathtaking icy mountain scenes, most often in the European Alps.World audiences were very enthusiastic about "mountain movies" but few were made after sound movies replaced silent movies."The Eiger Sanction" (1975) is an exception, and a spectacular one.About 50 percent of the movie is taken up with incredible and spectacular camera work of breathtaking and hair raising mountain scenery both in the USA's famous Monument Valley terrain, and also in the Swiss Alps.The Richard Shickel authored biography of Clint Eastwood titled "Clint" reports that a stunt man doubling for the actor-climbers in the Swiss Alps part of the movie was accidentally killed during the shoot, and the entire production was almost shut down as a result."The Eiger Sanction" (1975) shows both the beauty and the danger of monster mountains, and must be counted as among the best outdoor photography ever provided for a Hollywood feature movie.The movie is historically interesting because it mirrored its times (the middle 1970's), which were still part of the counter-cultural revolution and sympathies usually called collectively "the 60's," but actually a period comprising the last half of the 1960's and first half of the 1970's (the 1970's was also "counter-cultural," but doesn't get credit for it when the while era is referred to as "the '60's").Heterosexual interplay and enthusiasms between Clint Eastwood and various attractive actresses part of the movie are part of the show, and are of a sort which later disappeared from movies after the "Sexual Revolution" of the those "counter-cultural times" faded away.The anti-CIA, anti-government sympathies and mentality of counter-cultural times are also seen in "The Eiger Sanction" (1975), which proposes cynically that CIA ordered and staged assassinations were not always necessary or justified."The Eiger Sanction" (1975) is a CIA agent movie which, unlike most others of its type, does not have a final scene where the good guy and the bad guy duke it out at the end, and the bad guy "gets his." The main interest of the movie is the wonderful photography....the movie is sort of an ultimate travelogue of spectacular mountains seen in vivid color and from astonishing angles, with camera work done from helicopters and small airplanes which "gets in close" in almost a surgical way."The Eiger Sanction" (1975) did not go on to become a famous or honored movie listed among the "classics" of its time, but it deserves to be."Jaws" (1975) was made the same year (1975) as "The Eiger Sanction" (1975), and was also produced by Richard Zanuck and David Brown (Helen Gurley Brown's husband!), and also included music composed by composer John Williams."The Eiger Sanction" (1975) included heavyweight support talent, and the result was and still is a true winner.----------------- Written by Tex Allen, SAG Actor.Email Tex Allen at [email protected] Visit WWW.IMDb.Me/TexAllen for movie credits and biography information.