The Eiger Sanction (film)

The Eiger Sanction
Original poster
Directed by	Clint Eastwood
Produced by	Robert Daley Richard D. Zanuck David Brown
Screenplay by	Rod Whitaker Hal Dresner Warren Murphy
Based on	The Eiger Sanction by Trevanian
Starring	Clint Eastwood George Kennedy Jack Cassidy Vonetta McGee
Music by	John Williams
Cinematography	William N. Clark Frank Stanley
Editing by	Ferris Webster
Studio	The Malpaso Company
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date(s)	May 21, 1975
Running time	123 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Box office	$14 million

The Eiger Sanction is a 1975 American action thriller based on the novel The Eiger Sanction by Trevanian, a pseudonym for the American author, Dr. Rodney William Whitaker. The film was directed by Clint Eastwood, who also starred as Dr. Jonathan Hemlock.

Plot

Dr. Jonathan Hemlock, art professor and mountaineer, is a retired government assassin called on to return to work for two more "sanctions," a euphemism for officially approved killings. He has used the fortune made from previous sanctions to amass 21 rare masterpiece paintings, primarily stolen pieces smuggled into the U.S. from Europe.

The director of the secret government agency called "C2" is "Mr. Dragon," an albino ex-Nazi confined to semi-darkness and kept alive by blood transfusions. Dragon wants Hemlock to kill two men responsible for the death of another government agent. Insisting he is retired, Hemlock refuses until Dragon threatens to expose Hemlock's collection to the IRS. He carries out the first sanction in Europe for $20,000, twice his usual fee, and a letter guaranteeing no trouble from the IRS.

Returning from Europe, Hemlock meets C2 courier Jemima Brown, who seduces him and steals his money and IRS exemption letter. Dragon agrees to return them if Hemlock completes another assassination. Hemlock is reluctant, but agrees when he learns that the C2 agent killed was an old friend of his. He demands $100,000 plus expenses. He is told the target is a member of a international climbing team which in the summer will ascend the north face of the Eiger in Switzerland. Hemlock will be the American member of the team, and must kill one of the climbers, but C2 is unsure of the target's identity.

Hemlock goes to Arizona to train at a climbing school run by a friend, Ben Bowman. He is whipped back to shape by an attractive Native American woman called George (later revealed to be Bowman's daughter). He also encounters an enemy, Miles Mellough, a former ally from the military who betrayed him in Southeast Asia. Mellough tries to kill Hemlock by hiring George to drug him. Hemlock lures Mellough and his bodyguard into the desert, shooting the bodyguard and leaving Mellough to die in the sun.

Hemlock goes to Switzerland with Bowman, the "ground man" (supervisor) of the climb. There is conflict within the climbing team, mainly due to the headstrong German member, Freytag. The expedition encounters bad conditions on the mountain face. The French climber is struck by falling rocks and dies. With Hemlock now leading as the team fractures, the team retreats towards a tunnel/window that connects to a railroad station inside the mountain, the dead climber between them. At the last moment, the other two climbers fall to their deaths when their anchors come loose, but Hemlock is saved, dangling alone a few meters from the rail station window.

Bowman is in the tunnel with a rescue crew, ready to throw a rope to Hemlock. Hemlock notices Bowman is limping, a sign revealed earlier that identifies Hemlock's target. Hemlock says, "You're limping, Ben," several times, now reluctant to trust that Bowman will rescue him. Bowman throws him the rope. Hemlock attaches it, then reluctantly cuts his own rope. He falls onto Bowman's rope, and is pulled into the tunnel to safety.

On the train back to town, Bowman admits he became involved with "the other side" years earlier and had no idea there would be a killing. Bowman admits he had become involved with Miles Mellough because he owed a debt to him, that he had gotten his daughter George off drugs. In the last scene, the viewer is left to wonder whether Hemlock still counts Bowman among his "friends." Hemlock takes a phone call from Mr. Dragon who assumes Hemlock killed all three other climbers intentionally, as C2 never determined the target. Hemlock is rejoined by Jemima Brown, who wonders if Dragon is correct.

Cast

• Clint Eastwood as Dr. Jonathan Hemlock
• George Kennedy as Ben Bowman
• Vonetta McGee as Jemima Brown
• Jack Cassidy as Miles Mellough
• Heidi Brühl as Mrs. Anna Montaigne
• Thayer David as Dragon
• Reiner Schöne as Karl Freytag
• Michael Grimm as Anderl Meyer
• Jean-Pierre Bernard as Jean-Paul Montaigne
• Brenda Venus as George
• Gregory Walcott as Pope
• Candice Rialson as Art Student
• Elaine Shore as Miss Cerberus
• Dan Howard as Dewayne
• Jack Kosslyn as Reporter
• Walter Kraus as Kruger
• Frank Redmond as Henri Baq (Wormwood)
• Siegfried Wallach as Hotel Manager'
• Susan Morgan as Buns
• Jack Frey as Cab Driver

Production

Casting

The rights to the film were bought by Universal in 1972, soon after the book was published, and it was originally a Richard Zanuck and David Brown production. Paul Newman was intended for Jonathan Hemlock. After reading the script, Newman declined, believing the film too violent. With concerns over early scripts, Eastwood contacted novelist Warren Murphy (known for his The Destroyer assassin series) in Connecticut in February 1974 for assistance despite his having never read the book or written for a film before. Murphy read the novel and agreed to write the script but was not happy with the tone of the novel which he believed patronized readers. A draft by Murphy emerged in late March and a revised script was completed a month later. George Kennedy, who had recently finished filming Thunderbolt and Lightfoot with Eastwood was cast as Big Ben Bowman, Hemlock's friend and secret adversary, Jack Cassidy cast as Miles Mellough, and Thayer David as "Dragon." Vonetta McGee of Thomasine and Bushrod was cast as the African-American female C2 operative, Jemima Brown.

Filming

The Eiger

Mike Hoover, an Academy Award-nominated professional mountaineer from Jackson, Wyoming was a mountaineering cinematographer and technical adviser. He taught Eastwood how to climb in Summer 1974 in Yosemite, California. Filming in Grindelwald, Switzerland began on August 12, 1974 with a team of climbing experts and advisers from America, England, Germany, Switzerland and Canada. The team were based at the Kleine Schneidegg Hotel. The Eiger at 13,041 feet is not as tall as other Swiss alps, but it is treacherous climbing; "Eiger" means "ogre" in German. The Eiger's north face has earned the German nickname Mörderwand or Mordwand, "murder wall" or "death wall," respectively. Eastwood's decision to brave the mountain was disapproved by Dougal Haston, director of the International School of Mountaineering, who had lost climbers on the Eiger, and by cameraman Frank Stanley, who thought that to climb a perilous mountain to shoot a film was unnecessary. According to cameraman Rexford Metz it was a boyhood fantasy of Eastwood's to climb such a mountain and he enjoyed displaying heroic machismo. The film crew had a number of accidents. A 27-year old English climber, David Knowles, who was a body double and photographer, was killed, with Hoover narrowly escaping. Eastwood almost abandoned the project but proceeded because he did not want Knowles to have died in vain. Eastwood insisted on doing all his own climbing and stunts. Frank Stanley also fell but survived and used a wheelchair for some time. Stanley, who completed filming under pressure from Eastwood, blamed Eastwood for the accident because of lack of preparation, describing him as a director and actor as "...a very impatient man who doesn't really plan his pictures or do any homework. He figures he can go right in and sail through these things". Stanley was never hired by Eastwood or Malpaso Productions again. Several other accidents and events apparently took place during the filming, but were hidden from the public by the producers.

Speaking with Roger Ebert, Eastwood discussed the stunt in which he dangled from a mountain on the end of a cable:

""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. I put on a little disguise and slipped into a sneak preview of the film to see how people liked it. When I was hanging up there in the air, the woman in front of me said to her friend, 'Gee, I wonder how they did that?' and her friend said, 'Special effects.'"

Reception

The Eiger Sanction was panned by most critics on its release in May 1975. A number of critics criticized Eastwood's performance, short of the sophistication of the character in the book. Playboy described the film as "a James Bond reject." Joy Gould Boyum of the Wall Street Journal remarked that, "the film situates villainy in homosexuals and physically disabled men." Several critics did not understand the plot and Pauline Kael of New York Magazine described the film as "a total travesty." The film was a commercial failure, taking $23.8 million at the box office. Eastwood blamed the production company for poor earnings and publicity and left Universal Studios.

See also

• Assassinations in fiction
• Eiger North Face

References

Bibliography

• Eliot, Marc (2009). American Rebel: The Life of Clint Eastwood. Harmony Books. ISBN 978-0-307-33688-0. 
• Hughes, Howard (2009). Aim for the Heart. London: I.B. Tauris. ISBN 9781845119027. 
• McGilligan, Patrick (1999). Clint: The Life and Legend. Harper Collins. ISBN 0-00-638354-8.. 

External links

• The Eiger Sanction at the Internet Movie Database
• The Eiger Sanction filming locations