Where Eagles Dare

Every winter when the snow flickers down heavily and lies down thick upon the world, I always get a notion to watch the movie, Where the Eagles Dare. Growing up, this was one of my dad's favorite movies, and I remember being entranced by its snow storms, fights, intrigue, and battle scenes. This winter was no exception. When the snow fell, I thought about this movie, but I did actually this time rent and watch it.

What can I say. It still had all of the things I remembered. Of course, some of the special affects were not to up to par with what we have come to expect with today's movies, but that did not bother me. What can you expect? The thing that did bother me was the point of view in the movie. For most of the movie we follow the protagonist, Major Smith, but the annoying thing is we don't know what Major Smith knows. Throughout the entire course of the movie, we are trying to find out what is going on in the story, when Major Smith already knows what is going on; the storytellers just thought they would be crafty and not tell us. By the end, Smith's mind is finally revealed to the audience. This is a cheat, and a cheap way to tell a story. Any storyteller can withhold information, but can they withhold it in a creative way?

Compare this movie to Sixth Sense. We don't know what is going on in the movie, but neither does the main character. When we do discover the revealing truth at the end of the movie, that he really is dead, we discover this shocking revelation as he discovers it. That is good storytelling, no cheap tricks, but just plain storytelling, the viewer experiencing the drama as the protagonist would experience it.

Regardless of my little pet peeve, Where Eagles Dare still had those chilling snow scenes, and action-packed scenes of high adventure. Furthermore, it also has the most martial musical score that I've ever heard. I wish I could find it to post it, but alas, I'm afraid it is too rare of a find.