The Eiger Sanction

May. 21,1975      R
Rating:
6.4
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Trailer Synopsis Cast

A classical art professor and collector, who doubles as a professional assassin, is coerced out of retirement to avenge the murder of an old friend.

Clint Eastwood as  Jonathan Hemlock
George Kennedy as  Ben Bowman
Vonetta McGee as  Jemima Brown
Jack Cassidy as  Miles Mellough
Heidi Brühl as  Mrs. Montaigne
Thayer David as  Dragon
Reiner Schöne as  Freytag
Jean-Pierre Bernard as  Montaigne
Brenda Venus as  George
Gregory Walcott as  Pope

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Reviews

TinsHeadline
1975/05/21

Touches You

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Console
1975/05/22

best movie i've ever seen.

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Baseshment
1975/05/23

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

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Guillelmina
1975/05/24

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

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grantss
1975/05/25

Dr. Jonathan Hemlock is a professor of art, a highly skilled mountain climber and a former assassin for the US government. He is lured out of retirement when a former colleague is murdered. The targets: the men who killed his friend. One catch: killing one of them will require him to climb his nemesis, the mountain that he has twice failed to scale: the Eiger.Directed by Clint Eastwood, scenic and action-filled but poorly written and hammily acted. Clumsy script with contrived plot developments, one-dimensional characters and dialogue that is ridiculous at times. Had a few moments when I thought "Did they just say that?". Yes, things were different 40+ years ago but some of the dialogue would have been pretty odd even for the 70s. Going with the one-dimensional characters, some pretty hammy acting. Even Clint Eastwood seems quite unconvincing. He can't blame the director - he was directing himself! This all said, the clumsiness and weakness of script mostly occurs in the first half of the movie - it gets better as it goes along. The cinematography is good, with some great Alpine scenes. Despite the generally badly-written dialogue, there are some good one-liners in there too.Overall, beneath Eastwood's abilities as both director and actor and not worth watching.

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TxMike
1975/05/26

I watched this on DVD from my public library. It is one of seven Eastwood movies released on a set of discs. For an older movie the picture and sound are pretty darned good.Clint Eastwood had bit parts in many movies and TV shows and by the time he became somewhat "known" he was almost 30. But then his career really took off. By the time this movie, "The Eiger Sanction", came out he was a movie star. The movie is based on a book and it is directed by Eastwood. His role required a lot of mountain climbing so Eastwood became a mountain climber for the role, reportedly because he thought it was too dangerous to hire a stunt double. So we actually see a lot of Eastwood doing his own mountain climbing, including the scene near the end where he was dangling off Eiger Mountain and encouraged to "cut the rope above you." Tragically one mountain climber in the movie died during shooting.The title reference to "sanction" is to impose a penalty on someone, in this case to assassinate someone during a scheduled mountain climb on Eiger Mountain in Switzerland. Eastwood plays Jonathan Hemlock, professor and art collector, supposedly retired as an assassin for a secret government agency but is pulled out of retirement to avenge the death of a friend. We later learn that everything was a set-up for a totally different reason.With the amount of time spent on climbing, in Monument Valley to prepare, then on Eiger Mountain for the "sanction", it is clear those responsible fr this movie wanted to focus on the scenery and the climbing. Otherwise the story itself is pretty plain vanilla. But Eastwood is a star, his movies are always fun to watch.SPOILERS: As Hemlock goes into the climb with three others he doesn't yet know which one is his target. he supposedly was looking for a man with a limp. But and accident kills one climber, then bad weather forces them to retreat, and descent incidents kill the other two. So, unwittingly, Hemlock gets rid of all of them yet the man with the limp turns out to be his friend, played by George Kennedy.

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Maziun
1975/05/27

"The Eiger sanction" reminds me a little of a Bond movie. Eastwood plays here a spy who looks for a murderer of his friend . Every woman in this movie is attracted to him . He's making smart-ass comments . He likes good art. He's quite independent . The difference between him and Bond is that he's much deeper character . He's aware of the two-faced nature of his job . His bitter towards his bosses . And he actually makes mistakes (unlike Bond) which makes it easy to relate to him.The main reasons to watch this movie are Eastwood , very enjoyable dialogues , naturally looking fights scenes , humor and interesting characters. "TES" isn't too heavy on plot and the action scenes aren't really spectacular. It's quite long (2 hours) and I think that as a book this story is much better.The music by John Williams is cool . The ladies are sexy . The actors and actresses give solid support to Eastwood : Vonetta McGee (secret agent Jemima) , George Kennedy (friend Ben) , Jack Cassidy (homosexual Miles) , Thayer David (boss Dragon). There are some nice twists near the end.Overall , it's a fun and kinda forgotten movie in Eastwood career . I give it 5/10.

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classicsoncall
1975/05/28

Someone really has to explain to me how they got George Kennedy to hang out at the top of that rock pillar. That looked just a little too real, didn't it, with him and Eastwood surveying the landscape? Today you could probably pull it off with some cool CGI, but man, that shot was outrageous.So even with a side career as an elite assassin, I couldn't figure how David Garner (Eastwood) could afford all that high priced art. There were the twenty one Pissarro's of course, but also a Monet and a Rembrandt, so right there the film's premise lost a bit of credibility for me. Actually, I thought the name Pissarro was made up for the picture until I just googled it, and it turns out he was a Danish-French impressionist of the late 1800's.Interestingly, this might be the first movie I've seen in which the hired assassin doesn't fulfill his mission, even if the contact who hired him winds up believing that he did. That was kind of a cool twist actually, and made sense after Ben Bowman (George Kennedy) explained things to his former protégé and climbing partner. Kennedy really let loose in this picture, and I got a kick out of his character when he first came on the scene to pick up Garner in the desert. But come on, how is it this limping man managed to keep pace with Eastwood on that first training run and later on climbing up The Tower? The only time I ever saw him limp was when Eastwood's character did.You know, I was so intrigued by Eastwood's "Screw Marlon Brando" line I had to look it up. Back in 1973 when Brando sent an actress using the alias Sacheen Littlefeather to refuse his Oscar for "The Godfather", his action was widely condemned. During the same awards ceremony, Eastwood, who was presenting the award, remarked he didn't know whether he should dedicate it to all the cowboys shot in John Ford's Westerns. Apparently Clint carried the grudge over to this film, though to viewers who aren't in the know, the line coming out of nowhere won't make any sense at all.

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