Where Eagles Dare by Alistair Maclean

Where Eagles Dare

I am a big fan of the film and so picked up the "Companion Book Club" edition of the book at the local Oxfam shop because I think it is interesting to see where the iconic nature of the film came from, how much Maclean's original story, how much the film's Director, and how much the clearly stella performances of Burton and Eastwood. 

Reading it however much credit is due Maclean you can not ignore the power of Burton and Eastwood in the those central roles Smith and Schaffer.  The Smith and Schaffer of the book never quite manage the same intense relationship, but in other ways the book does have greater power in the story.  The film is unashamedly all action and so it is full of explosions, and great as they are in the judgement of an action movie they at time that masks the true tension of the story. I have watched the film at least a dozen times and still found reading the book a part of me wasn't sure it Smith and Schaffer would make it out alive. 

The biggest difference from the film is the great value that the book's characters place on human life.  In the film, as in all action movies, dozen of unnamed foot soldiers find themselves either blown-up or mowed down. Yet in the book these same soldiers are tied up rather than shot, and at one point Smith risks has own life to go back an untie a soldier who would otherwise have victim to a later diversionary fire the heroes have started.  This results in a clear message, the deeply honourable nature of the mission, and particularly of the otherwise cold and ruthlessly calculating Smith, and the contrasting deep dishonour of the traitors who Smith kills or allows to die without a second thought.  Smith will not kill the 'honest' German Soldier in cold blood despite them being enemy combatants but clearly he views the double agents as no longer residing in the land of honourable men.  This is not just the difference in the medium of story telling, it is positively part of the characters Maclean has written, part those who made the film either missed or choose to ignore.