November 6 - The Eagle Has Landed

Today’s movie is a war/suspense film with a scene that happens on November 6. Watch it tonight and enjoy.

THE EAGLE HAS LANDED             

After Col. Skorenzky rescues Mussolini from the allies, Hitler orders Admiral Canaris, head of German intelligence to prepare a contingency plan to kidnap British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Col. Radl, who is assigned this task, gets a message from an agent in England that Churchill will be spending the weekend at a lonely house on the Norfolk coast near the village of Studley Constable. Radl picks Steiner for the job since he’s a paratrooper who was educated in England. Steiner and his men are arrested for trying to save a Jewish girl from deportation. Canaris orders Radl to drop the plan, but he meets with Liam Devlin, a member of the IRA who hates the English. Himmler orders the plan carried out. Radl retrieves Steiner and his men from suicide torpedo duty. Devlin travels to Studley Constable and meets Molly Price and fights Arthur over her. Steiner’s men parachute in. Arthur investigates Devlin. Molly shots Arthur, since she thinks Devlin is a black marketer. Devlin meets the village priest and his sister Pam, who introduces him to an American officer, Capt. Clark, who is stationed nearby. His boss Col. Pitts wants a combat command. Steiner’s men, who are disguised as Poles begin ‘maneuvers” in the village on November 6, 1943, [1:04:45 to 2:07:43] but are exposed when one of the men dives into the millrace to save a small child who is drowning. Pam and Mary are in the church and see the Germans herding all the civilians there so they escape through a tunnel under the chutch. Pam goes to see Joanna Grey since she has a car. Unfortunately, she turns out to be the German agent who filed the initial report. She shoots Pam and wounds her, but Pam still escapes to warn Capt. Clark. Col. Pitts desperate for combat leads his men to the village and tries to get Steiner to surrender. When he refuses, Pitts sends his men charging in blind and many are killed. Churchill is intercepted by Capt. Clark and taken to the American HQ. Back in the village Col. Pitts again charges in blind and is shot and killed by Joanna Grey. Clark takes over and gets more men. Steiner releases the villagers he had been holding as hostages.  Steiner sneaks out through the tunnel to go and shoot Churchill, while his men hold off the Americans as long as possible until all are killed. Devlin leaves on the e-boat that had been sent to pick up the Germans. Steiner stays. He goes to the HQ where Churchill is staying and gets close enough to kill him before being killed himself. Only then is it revealed that it wasn’t Churchill at all, but a double, as the real Churchill has left for the Teheran conference. Radl is shot on Himmler’s orders.

A good action film. Keeps the suspense high, even though you know how it turns out. Larry Hagman was well cast, while Donald Sutherland was not.

The Eagle Has Landed by Jack Higgins (Pocket Books, New York, 1975) at page 10 and the film at 16:51-16:52 give the date of the battle

Producer - David Niven, Jr. and Jack Weiner

Director - John Sturges

Screenplay - Tom Mankiewicz

Running Time - 2 hours 25 minutes

Released - December 25, 1976

Starring -         

Michael Caine as Oberst Kurt Steiner

Donald Sutherland as Liam Devlin

Robert Duvall as Oberst Max Radl

Jenny Agutter as Molly Prior

Donald Pleasence as Heinrich Himmler

Anthony Quayle as Adm. Wilhelm Canaris

Jean Marsh as Joanna Grey

Sven-Bertil Taube as Hauptmann Ritter (Hans) von Neustadt

Siegfried Rauch as Sergeant Major Otto Brandt

John Standing as Father Verecker

Judy Geeson as Pamela Verecker

Treat Williams as Capt. Clark

Larry Hagman as Col. Pitts

Richard Wren as Sgt. Hans Altmann

Alexei Jawdokinov as Cpl. Werner Briegel

Steve Ubels as a German paratrooper

 Leonie Thelen as the Jewish girl

Copyright by Ivan Walters in 2014.