The Eiger Sanction is a 1975 American action thriller movie directed by Clint Eastwood (who also stars) and was based on the 1972 novel of the same name by Trevanian.It also stars George Kennedy, Jean-Pierre Bernard, Vonetta McGee, Jack Cassidy, Thayer David, Gregory Walcott, Heidi Brühl and was distributed by Universal Pictures.. Other websites Ski lodge with views of the Eiger Spent a long 10 day ski break at the hotel with our 9 year old son. The way the book was written, he had no motivations for anything. The Eiger Sanction During his career with a secret government agency called "C2", Hemlock amassed a private collection of 21 rare masterpiece paintings, paid for from his previous sanctions. Those holes in the story - well, they're right there in the book, too. A trucker turned prize fighter, his brother and their pet orangutan have a series of misadventures involving the mob, corrupt cops, motorcycle gangs and pretty dames. The Eiger Sanction is an early 70s thriller which tries to chase some of that James Bond money. A hard but mediocre cop is assigned to escort a prostitute into custody from Las Vegas to Phoenix, so that she can testify in a mob trial. Based on the 1972 novel of the same name by Trevanian, the film is about an art history professor, mountain climber, and former assassin once employed by a secret United States government agency, who is blackmailed into returning to his deadly profession and do one more "sanction", a euphemism for killing. The Eiger Sanction, even as a bad movie, is still one of the best-or maybe the best-climbing movies. "[40] Ivey concluded: The images created on screen by Eastwood, his stunt, mountaineering, and camera teams, and the landscapes themselves are incredible. The film was produced by Robert Daley for Eastwood's Malpaso Company, with Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown as executive producers, and co-starred George Kennedy, Vonetta McGee, and Jack Cassidy. "[13] Believing that improvements could be made to the script, Eastwood contacted novelist Warren B. Murphy — known for his The Destroyer assassin series — in February 1974, and asked for his assistance, despite Murphy's having never read the book nor written for a film before. He is forced to take a case where he must find out which of the members of a mountain climbing team is the Russian killer he has been given as a target by joining an expedition to climb the treacherous Eiger. [21] Cameraman Frank Stanley also thought climbing the perilous mountain to shoot a film was unnecessary. Here is a story I found on file. [12] More importantly, the project offered him the opportunity to work in relative isolation on location in Switzerland, away from the distractions of the studio and to work efficiently with a small cast and crew. The scene required him to cut himself free so he could be pulled to safety by his rescuers. Although there are some entertaining parts and a germ of a good story, it really is dated, poorly written, and kinda racist and misogynistic. Like so many movies in the genre, the film’s plot is patently ridiculous, but it does what it needs to do to serve up pithy one-liners and thrilling action sequences to the audience. He was awarded the Royal Humane Society's highest honor for his actions in the 1970 rescue of several stranded climbers in Glencoe, Scotland. Mellough somehow knows a great deal of what Hemlock is planning. [22] While the team was preparing to be helicoptered off the north face, Hoover remembered they had not taken any footage from the climbers' point of view of the boulders crashing down on them. [17] Eastwood had seen and admired the documentary, and hired Hoover to train him on how to look professional during the climbing scenes, and to serve as principal cameraman on the more dangerous climbing sequences. But a lot of people are literally betting that they won't make it into town alive. Written by "[35] Playboy magazine described the film as "a James Bond reject. [9] From the beginning, Eastwood planned to shoot the mountaineering scenes on location, and that he would do his own climbing without a stunt double. The Eiger Sanction is a 1972 thriller novel by Trevanian, the pen name of Rodney William Whitaker. Looking to watch The Eiger Sanction? Special equipment and handheld cameras were employed to film the climbing sequences. The Eiger Sanction is a 1975 American action thriller directed by and starring Clint Eastwood. The life of a disc jockey is turned upside down after a romantic encounter with an obsessed fan. Info. An idealistic, modern-day cowboy struggles to keep his Wild West show afloat in the face of hard luck and waning interest. He is forced to take a case where he must find out which of the members of a mountain climbing team is the Russian killer he has been given as a target by joining an expedition to climb the treacherous Eiger. View production, box office, & company info. 1975, Adventure/Mystery and thriller, 2h 9m. On the train back to Kleine Scheidegg, Bowman admits he became involved with "the other side" years earlier, but claims he had no idea that Hemlock's friend would be killed. This realness makes films like this compelling in a way today's films can never be. At the time, Zanuck said that Eastwood was his "earlier choice" to play Jonathan Hemlock, but scheduling conflicts prevented him from committing to the project. As he cuts the rope supporting his weight, he drops precariously before being saved by a rigged cable. Clint Eastwood seemed like a nice guy. The Eiger Sanction is a dandy thriller with a slight sideways twist to it that manages to satirize the genre while also playing it pretty much straight. The general reaction among many reviewers offered criticism of the story and screenplay, and praise for the climbing footage and action sequences. [9] He also hired Mike Hoover to serve as climbing adviser for the film. With his handheld camera, Hoover and 26-year-old British climber David Knowles rappelled down to the ledge and took the needed footage. Watch later. "[36] Some critics were less forgiving, such as Joy Gould Boyum of The Wall Street Journal, who complained that the film "situates villainy in homosexuals and physically disabled men",[36] and Pauline Kael of New York magazine, who described the film as "a total travesty".[36]. Copy link. This FAQ is empty. [34] In his review in the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars, writing, "It 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 ... and so we get wrapped up in the situations, and we're seduced by the photography, and we enjoy the several pretty girls who happen along in the hero's path, and if the plot doesn't make any sense well, no movie's perfect. Insisting he is retired, Hemlock refuses until Dragon threatens to expose Hemlock's art collection to the Internal Revenue Service. Back at Kleine Scheidegg, Bowman approaches Hemlock, looking to mend his relationship with the assassin. Find out where The Eiger Sanction is streaming, if The Eiger Sanction is on Netflix, and get news and updates, on Decider. (1975). Film critic David Sterritt, for example, concluded, "Eastwood's unsubtle directing hammers the story home effectively, with commendable attention to details of performance". From the iconic to the eclectic, relive the most memorable moments from the Oscars red carpet. [31] The pseudo-baroque piece "Training with George" presents a lovely string arrangement "demonstrating Williams's remarkable versatility while retaining that musical signature that makes all of his scores so recognizably his", according to writer James Southall. He was one of the few crew members who actually climbed the Eiger north face. [18] Hoover negotiated permission from the tribal authorities for his team to climb the Totem Pole to remove pitons and other climbing hardware embedded in the structure by previous climbers, restoring the monolith to pristine condition. A young girl tries to find her way in life, suffering from her own naivety and sincerity. John Vogel . Disappointed with the results and believing the story was too violent,[7] Newman opted out of the project. Get a sneak peek of the new version of this page. Hemlock must simultaneously determine which of his fellow climbers is a Soviet spy, kill his target and scale the deadly peak. The picture was filmed on location on the Eiger mountain and Zurich in Switzerland, in Monument Valley and Zion National Park in the American Southwest, and in Carmel-by-the-Sea and Monterey in California. [9] Eastwood was never interested in espionage as a subject or the spy thriller as a genre,[9] but he was attracted to the project for two reasons. Was this review helpful to you? Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. The film is based on the 1972 thriller novel The Eiger Sanction by Trevanian, a pseudonym for Rodney William Whitaker, a University of Texas film professor. Clint Eastwood directs and stars in this international intrigue action thriller that takes place on the Swiss Alps. [9] Eastwood saw serious flaws with the novel and the script, which had gone through three revisions and a rewrite by the time he read it. The Eiger Sanction Synopsis: Jonathan Hemlock is an art history professor and collector who finances his hobby by performing the odd sanction (assassination) for an obscure government bureau. [27] Eastwood later said, "I didn't want to use a stunt man, because I wanted to use a telephoto lens and zoom in slowly all the way to my face—so you could see it was really me. Hemlock tells Bowman that C2 believes the target died on the mountain, and that no reason exists to tell them otherwise. Bowman throws him the rope, and Hemlock attaches it, then reluctantly cuts his own rope. [18] Hoover later recalled, "He looked up at me and said, 'Gee, I don't think I can make it.' [1][Note 1], In a 1976 interview with author Patrick McGilligan for Focus on Film, Eastwood described the essential problems with the novel: "The book has no ties. Hemlock is reluctant, but agrees when he learns that the C2 agent killed, Wormwood, was in fact his old friend Henri Baq. Hemlock is an ex-Green Beret, and Baq and he had served together during the Vietnam War, where Baq saved his life. Whitaker wrote a sequel entitled The Loo Sanction. [1] In late July 1974, Eastwood, Kennedy, Hoover, and a small crew traveled to Monument Valley—director John Ford's favorite location for his Westerns—on the Arizona-Utah border to film a sequence that would be used in the film as a practice climb by the main characters of the Totem Pole, a 640-foot (200 m) rock spire with an 18-foot (5.5 m) diameter. A boy with a music talent goes on a journey with his uncle for a stage concert. 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