Year of Eastwood #22

The Eiger Sanction (1975)

Starring: Eastwood, George Kennedy
Directed by Eastwood

Eiger Sanction is a cult classic among the Eastwoodies out there. Difficult to take too seriously, this campy Clint classic is a whacked-out, James Bond type international thriller with so many holes in the story that you could drive an ice pick right through it. Resplendent with all the Clint swagger, he really goes all out and has a helluva good time playing a CIA agent (oops, guess it’s not really the CIA but some made-up C2 agency).

During his down-time from world intrigue, Clint is an art professor at a prestigious university. The students really seem to dig him - giving him standing ovations at the end of his lectures - of course, all the young co-eds make with the goo-goo eyes and offer to perform some extra credit after class. What with all the headlines lately with teachers running off to Mexico with students, Clint knows better and suggests that the young gals go home and snuggle up with their art history book instead.

Clint is content to be retired from the high-stakes spy game, instead enjoying life admiring his high price art collection he keeps in his basement. Well, one day a really aggressive headhunter stops by his office to recruit Clint back into his old line of work. Clint slaps him around but still decides to make a visit to his old boss, the absolute definitive albino, that heads up the C2. It really makes you wonder how this guy - who is so sensitive to light and sound that his office is a sealed chamber with ultra-red lighting - ever got to his lofty position as director of C2? Did he work his way up from the mailroom? Maybe it was nepotism ...

After some witty banter, Clint decides to take on one last sanction - an action against an aggressive move by the enemy - or in other words, assassinate the dudes that killed one of their agents. Clint infiltrates the enemy’s high security fortress (he climbs thru an open window) and kills his target. On the flight home, he meets up with a sassy, funk-tastic stewardess named Jemima - well it doesn’t take Clint long to put the wood to her. But she double-crosses Clint and next thing you know, he’s on board for another sanction. This one to take place during a mountain hike up the Eiger, part of the Swiss Alps.

I’m exhausted already and the movie isn’t even half way done yet … so Clint - who by the way also found time to be an accomplished mountain climber in his spare time - heads off to his old buddy George’s first-rate climbing facility, which due to fiscal constraints now operates as a swinger’s club. We all know there’s good money to be made from swinging. Clint and George trade quips in between training scenes with a little fitness hottie. Clint screws her and then she goes all psycho on him with an injection needle. Then one of Clint’s adversaries shows up in all his Liberace glory. Clint steals his dog and leaves him in the desert to die.

We haven’t even gotten to the freakin’ mountain yet … so Clint heads off to Switzerland with George to meet up with the mountain climbing team - one of whom is an assassin. Somehow this top-notch intelligence agency has determined that the killer is part of this team but they can’t figure out which one exactly. The only clue that they’ve been able to determine is the killer walks with a limp. For some other, no doubt, logical reason, it is determined that the only way to kill the guy is during this expedition. At one point, Clint mentions that maybe the mountain will do the job for him ... or you could wait at the bottom of the hill and shoot him in the head when he gets off the ski lift.

So Clint heads up the mountain with a German, an Austrian, and a Frenchman (no punch line coming) and after a bunch of falling rocks and sliding on ice - all of the guys end up dead and Clint is hanging off a cliff desperately clinging onto his rope. George shows up, suddenly displaying a mysterious limp, to save Clint … or will he?

Eiger Sanction is definitely from that category ... so-bad-it’s-good movie. With it’s over the top storyline and shaggy 70’s groove, the entire movie is craptacular. Keeping up with his tough-guy image, of course Clint does all of his own stunts - in and out of the bed. This might be one of the best Clint movies yet.