UKH

Now, BBC4. 

Well, it’s a lot worse then I remember!  

At least Clint did most of his own stunts.  Hamish McInnes' book Look beyond the ranges has a great chapter devoted to it.  

Yes.  Impressive on location filming (and fun cameos from Haston, Cleare etc) but some terrible acting and a narrative that just makes no sense to me (I haven't read the book, have they just butchered it?).  Plus some language and stereotypes that are pretty uncomfortable (although, to be fair, they are mostly being parodied).

And that's without the climbing gripes about shocking belaying, multiple people climbing at once whilst randomly being tied on or not etc etc. 

I guess it says a lot about the charisma of the two main characters, Clint and the Nordwand, that it's worth seeing at all. 

I climbed the ‘38 route, my first mixed climb, in 1975 the year the film was released and when for the first time you see the face in full screen I actually shivered in the cinema. Crap film though.

There's been a few threads about it on here over the years.  It's a two-dimensional cartoon strip of a film lacking depth, nuance and much else and which, nearly fifty years on, might easily be thought misogynistic.  But you do get to see Monument Valley and the Eiger and for that, I rather like it.

The plot's bonkers, but that's pretty standard for so many Clint Eastwood films it scarcely warrants a mention.

T.

I must admit I thought the non-climbing bits were terrible beyond the merely cheesey.

There are two good bits to the movie.

The (immensely talented) author of the book was vitriolic about the film - and gutted about the death of Dave Knowles. 

As Jim Perrin once said, "They butcher your work." That's bad enough. But the loss of a life is far, far worse.

Mick 

Coupling the Eiger with the Desert Southwest is an interesting plot choice.

I'd assume it was driven by a desire to show Brenda Venus partially naked in the training section. Possibly the film started with him training in the Rockies but the director struggled to shoehorn Brenda coaxing him up cliffs by getting her tits out in a snowy landscape.

yes but it teach all need know for climbing and behave in climbing world

It was so they could have the repartee about the beer and the ice.

Your comments prompted me to read the Wikipedia summary, which, as well as confirming a lot of the comments here, has some interesting stuff on the film adaptation and what happened to Knowles and Hoover:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eiger_Sanction_(film)

Am not sure if that's quite right or exactly how the accident happened. I gather Dave Knowles' best mate, a certain legendary Scottish climber, wasn't too impressed and made his feelings known in (then) time honoured fashion. 

Apparently once MacInnes arrived as Safety Officer, things started to get done by the book. Which is how it should be. Larking around on the Eiger isn't the way to do things. 

Mick 

I was sure I recalled you saying that before....

Just did a quick search - there's been 15 threads about the Eiger Sanction on here since 2005 and you initially mentioned it in 2005, then 2007 and then 2012 😉

from Wikipedia:

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 challenge of it for me," he would later explain, "was to actually shoot a mountain-type film on a mountain, not on sets. The only ones done in the past were all done on sets; the mountains were all papier-mâché mountains.

Such enormous fun. One of my favourite films. Not watched it for a while but caught it the other night. But let's just say the rampant mysogyny, homophobia and racism has not aged at all well. I'd forgotten Clint's casual line "I've given up rape". I suppose, to be positive, it shows how things have moved on for the better since it was made.

I've seen it umpteen times but that was the first time I've ever noticed the rape line. I don't know how I've never caught it before.

You may well have been distracted!

Obviously it's all pretty queasy by today's standards but my impression was that Clint's character was actually meant to be seen as progressive compared with some of the other characters.  Given only a little irony, 'I've given up rape' is a disapproval of the often abusive behaviour considered pretty normal back then.  And the conversation around 'that's very white of you' (a horrible expression, obviously) in the context of his relationship is I think meant to be a rejection of racism.  

Not so liberal about camp gay characters, though. 

hah!

Would that be when the native American lady takes her top off?

The version I heard, 1st hand from said Scottish legend, was that a Swiss policeman was hitting on Dave Knowles’ recently bereaved wife/girlfriend in full knowledge of what had happened, so he battered him and was then kicked out of Switzerland.

The two good bits: Clint's Dachstein mitts.

I almost wonder whether it is edited out.

Good excuse to rewatch my dvd!

Does include one of my favourite lines in a film, though "I may be insane, but I'm not stupid - they're in your pack!":

youtube.com/watch?v=9XBJAqWSznA&

Well I can totally understand that. How could you hit on a bereaved woman? That's beyond the pale. 

Might be better if this film had never been made? Contrasts with Habeler and Messner doing a fast and safe ascent. 

Mick 

I Guess a great many films from 1975 shouldn’t have been made if we judge them on tastes and morality 48 years later

I’m not sure Habeler and Messner would agree. They were on the mountain at the same time and where happy to have photographs with Clint and the cast and reproduce them in various books.

I'm judging it on morality at the time... and now... and all times. 

Through taking (I believe) unnecessary chances, someone was killed. 

Does making any film justify this? In my opinion, no. 

Mick 

But they don't have to agree. 

Through taking (I believe) unnecessary chances, someone was killed making the film.

Conversely Habeler and Messner made a fast and safe ascent of the Eiger NF. 

What I said was: there's a contrast. In fact (dammit, let's be reckless), I'll go even further and say it's a stark contrast.

Mick

Of course not, but that doesn't mean the film shouldn't have been made.

I believe I remember reading in the papers at the time that someone was killed by crocodiles while filming a stunt in the filming of Live and Let Die - film making is not safe as Leni Riefenstahl found.

of course whether the Bond films should have been made is an entirely separate question

Internet says injured, badly, not dead.

yes I see that now.  I'm pretty sure it was reported as killed at the time, possibly misreporting linking the death of the father.  It was in a colour feature about the new film I read at school and I was really shocked at the report of the death attributed to filming as it raised just the question in this thread in my 6th form brain, but reporters don't always get everything right.  I think it was the first time I'd read of a death during filming (even if not true) and it shocked me, even among all the blood and guts of Vietnam and Northern Ireland that was in the news daily.

They certainly took some risks. Apparently the crocodiles got wind of what was going on through the multiple takes. See also, car landing in the river on an (occupied) rowing boat in Octopussy!

A cameraman was, I believe (iirc from hearing about it at the time) decapitated (this article spares us that detail) during filming of Taxi 2....

https://variety.com/2002/film/news/besson-under-investigation-over-taxi-dea...

The film was made in an exceedingly dangerous location. Inadequate attention was paid to safety. A guy died. 

My comment above was: 'Might be better if this film had never been made?' 

Given the circumstances I don't think this is an unreasonable conclusion. However it seems that you (and others?) do. This being the case, I'm afraid we'll have to be civilised and agree to disagree. 

Mick 

My point was that there is no reason why it shouldn't have been made on safety grounds if adequate attention had been paid to safety. This seems self evident to me, but maybe I wasn't clear.

If they'd been safe, fair enough. But they weren't. 

Mick 

Mick, you seem to be very emotive about this topic and I don’t know if you have any personal connections. The only person I have spoken to who was there is Martin Boysen and he told me that the climbers had full control on the film, with regard to weather patterns, rigging and camera locations etc. Such as it was back then attention was paid to H&S and everybody knew the risks they took and I don’t think anyone would court unnecessary risk. Conversely for the prevailing mountaineering mindset of the day look no further than Brian Halls book. In the mountains objective danger can be ever present, as well as just sheer bad luck or judgement, such as the Cockermouth rescue team disaster, but this shouldn’t preclude things from happening. Many other mountain films have been made with a degree of objective danger, but thank goodness no fatalities. Seven Days One Summer and Touching the Void are two films of this genre, where again climbers dictated the H&S policy. On the former Paul Nunn was there for fun, as Sean Connerys climbing double, but Rab who at that time was working digging ditches on a pipe laying gang, worked on the film crew and was able to accrue enough working capital to start his business. We all know the results of that! On Touching the Void, filmed by Brian Hall, where the location climbing in Peru was undertaken by much more skilled climbers than Joe or Simon, there was nonetheless exposure to not inconsiderable objective danger. Should these films not have been made, after all there could easily have been a fatality.

Pretty sure that many of the crew (the 'Glencoe Mafia') from The Eiger Sanction worked on Five Days one Summer as well.

Not so sure, Alan Rouse was certainly part of the crew.

Yes, Big Ian has a picture of himself with Mr Connery.

Aye, the Peruvian hat and the cool shades. I'm sure there were more of that gang than just him and Hamish involved. Could be wrong though.

Eric Jones too, which he mentions in his book. Odd that the only time I was in his cafe and he brought me a chip butty I thought he was the dead spit of Sean Connery.

You’re absolutely correct, but I didn’t know them, so consequently haven’t discussed it with them, as I only knew Martin, Rab, Al and Paul, all of whom I often climbed with back then.

I don't have a personal connection. I'm simply sad that someone died. In Burden of Dreams, Werner Herzog muses whether it's right to lose lives or put them seriously at risk to make a film. My feeling is that it's not. 

I accept that this was a different time with different mores. But climbers have always been aware of a distinction between calculated risk and what I'd call stupid risk (i.e. taking unnecessary chances, aka pissing around).

My understanding is that, because of interpersonal dynamics, behaviour veered into stupid risk and this was why the Safety Officer was abruptly replaced. But I wasn't there; so I may be wrong. 

Mick 

I think you’re correct about the safety officer being replaced, but my understanding is that he was a non climber and his demands would have precluded filming, though not necessarily dangerously so. As a parallel, when industrial roped access first came to the UK the H&S executive said point blank that existing legislation would not allow it. We had to spend a long time in meetings and cooperating with them to write the initial code of practice to get it accepted. Over the years I’ve also encountered CDM supervisors whose interpretation of legislation would have made our work impossible and we’ve had to have them replaced without compromising safety. The UK currently has the most stringently applied H&S practices in Europe. However, as you correctly state any loss of life is a tragedy.

Conversely my understanding is that the safety officer who was replaced was a very well known climber indeed. But (yet again) I may be wrong. 

Mick 

P.S. For my last few posts I've merely being replying out of courtesy. Am more than happy to drop the subject - which is a sad one. 

Agreed. Raking over a nearly 50 year old tragedy is not of benefit to anyone.

Martin Boysen doubled for Clint though? Hamish taught Clint some basics for climbing too. I was lucky enough to meet Hamish and he told me what an interesting guy Clint is.