Graeme Robertson with four great war films (that aren’t Saving Private Ryan)…
I recently wrote a piece arguing that Steven Spielberg’s visceral war epic Saving Private Ryan should have won have been named Best Picture of 1998 by the Academy Awards, and I concluded in that feature that I thought Saving Private Ryan was one of the greatest war films ever made. Indeed this is a reputation that the film has held for almost 20 years since its release, with it being one of the most popular and acclaimed of the war film genre.
However, when I was writing this feature it got me thinking about the numerous war films that I’ve watched over the years that might get considerable praise from critics who proclaim them as the greatest, but I often find that the general movie viewing public is perhaps unaware of them or just haven’t gotten round to watching them.
So in this special feature, I’m going to spotlight four great war films (that aren’t Saving Private Ryan), in the hope that I can persuade those reading to seek out these underrated and overlooked masterpieces and spread the word about their brilliance.
Where Eagles Dare (1968)
Normally when we think of the modern war film we picture a sombre, dramatic and straight-faced approach, all told in a very matter of fact and serious manner, with the main aim of the filmmakers being to capture the horrors of conflict.
Back in what we might call “simpler” days, the war film was more often than not used as a way to tell stories of action and adventure which helpfully brings me to my first pick for this feature, the 1968 action-packed adventure classic Where Eagles Dare.
Set at the height of the Second World War, an elite squad of Allied commandos are dropped into Germany to rescue a captured American general from the clutches of a Nazi-controlled castle. However, the mission has a double purpose in that Allied intelligence has detected a traitor in the ranks, and it’s up to the British Major Smith and the American Lieutenant Schaffer to save the general and decipher the identity of the mole in their midst.
When we think of action heroes we might think of the likes of Schwarzenegger and Stallone from the 80s. With Eagles, though, we are gifted with possibly one of the finest and perhaps unlikeliest action duos to ever grace the silver screen, the cinematic legends that are the late Richard Burton and the Man with No Name himself Clint Eastwood.
Burton gives the best performance in the film, because of course he does. Richard Burton is arguably one of the finest actors to have ever lived and even though this is just a daft action film he delivers the performance with the same commitment that he would when performing his role in Becket.
Major Smith is a calm collected and cool man under pressure, always ready with a trick up his sleeve should he find himself caught out by nosy Gestapo officers or when requesting that resistance fighters take their clothes off, delivering his dialogue in that iconic voice of his. Seriously I’d kill for a voice like Richard Burton, and then I can finally be worthy to utter the immortal words “Broadsword calling Danny Boy”.
As the American Lt. Schaffer, then rising star Clint Eastwood gives a fine performance as, well, Clint Eastwood, being the towering squinting killing machine that has truly earned his status as a cinematic icon, even if he does sometimes like to talk to empty chairs. Eastwood while being out-acted by Burton in every scene they share, more than makes up for it by being the true action hero of the piece, with one scene showing him seemingly killing the entirety of Hitler’s army single-handedly with nothing but a fearsome squint and a machine gun.
The action scenes are excellent with a large variety of gunfights, (which often have Eastwood fighting all of Germany), chase sequences, harrowing cable car fights and a sheer abundance of obvious stunt doubles to keep you gripped in your seats. While the film takes a while to get to the action scenes, the build-up is itself outstanding with the various double-crossing and intrigue at play as our leading duo try to sniff out the Nazi stooge in their midst.
Those going into this expecting a serious war film might want to look elsewhere, this is a balls to the wall old school action flick and it’s one of the best of its era and it’s one of the best of all time in my view. Now some of you will probably be getting ready to type in the comments “but this is an action film, not a war film”, to which I respectfully disagree on the grounds that A. It’s set in the 1940s B. The villains are Nazis of the Allo Allo regiment, and C. It’s set during World War II, albeit one with Nazi helicopters which were not in common use at the time, but it’s a forgivable if slightly bizarre sight to see.
This is a war film through and through, and while its fan base seems to be mostly made up of my dad and other people’s dads, don’t dismiss it just because of that, it’s damn good fun.
Where Eagles Dare is one of those kinds of action adventure war films that we rarely see nowadays, a good old-fashioned action adventure that is one of my favourite war films and it might just become one of yours.
Originally published March 14, 2017. Updated April 16, 2018.
