Clint Eastwood is an icon like no other in the history of cinema. While he has earned significant accolades for his outstanding work behind the camera as a director, Eastwood is most often associated with the iconic roles that he helped to create. The enigmatic anti-hero of Sergio Leone’s The Man With No Name trilogy set a precedent for what gunslingers should look like in action westerns, and the character of Harry Callahan in the Dirty Harry franchise certainly inspired countless cop films in the subsequent decades. Given how influential Eastwood was, it’s not surprising that he was once up for the part of Ian Fleming’s James Bond in the 007 franchise. Although he sadly never got the opportunity to play the infamous MI6 agent, Eastwood did play a slick secret agent in the 1975 action thriller The Eiger Sanction.
The Eiger Sanction was released during an era when Eastwood was developing as a filmmaker. Although his first feature, Play Misty For Me, had been an impressive debut, it was really his 1973 western High Plains Drifter that proved Eastwood was capable of making an exciting action film. However, there was also the threat that should Eastwood continue to make westerns, he would eventually become boxed in by the genre and struggle to work on the other types of projects he was interested in. Thankfully, The Eiger Sanction was a great new take on the spy genre that gave the James Bond franchise a run for its money.
What Is ‘The Eiger Sanction’ About?
The Eiger Sanction focuses on a retired government spy who is forced to take “one last job” after being blackmailed by his former employer. Eastwood’s Jonathan Hemlock has long since abandoned the world of espionage, as he now uses his experience to work as an art professor at a prestigious university. Art is something he’s passionate about, as Jonathan owns a private collection of rare paintings that weren’t obtained through strictly legal means. The government agent C-2 Director Dragon (Thayer David) threatens to reveal his collection to probing investigators if Jonathan does not take on a new assignment to perform two “sanctions,” a reference to approved assassinations. Although he initially joins the mission despite his misgivings, Jonathan is pulled into a dangerous world where he takes on a mission of revenge after the death of a close colleague.
The Eiger Sanction offers a clever look at how assassins operate alongside government agencies, making it clear that all Jonathan’s missions are strictly “off the books.” This adds a different flavor to Eastwood’s character, as it’s evident that he’s not motivated by any overwhelming sense of patriotism or moral upstandingness. However, Eastwood does a great job shifting the stakes into personal ones once Jonathan realizes that Dragon has covered up the death of his friend Henri Baq (Frank Redmond), who he served with in the military. Jonathan may not claim to be a hero, but he values loyalty above all; Henri’s death inspires him to dismantle the conspiracy that operates in plain sight.
The Eiger Sanction lacks the cheeky humor, silly gadgets, and over-the-top action sequences common within the James Bond franchise, but the film offers Eastwood the opportunity to show his charismatic side. Even the early scenes in which Jonathan interacts with his curious students indicate that he has a transfixing amount of knowledge at his disposal, suggesting he is far more well-traveled than a standard university professor. Unlike the other spies he eventually works with during his mission, Jonathan isn’t interested in following the rules and doing things “by the books.” This temperamental, even humorous quality allows Eastwood to give his closest approximation to what he would have done with the role of 007.
‘The Eiger Sanction’ Had a Dangerous Production
Although there are some terrific shootouts and double-crosses, The Eiger Sanction became best known for its impressive mountain climbing sequences, which any viewers prone to feelings of vertigo are best suited to avoid. After Jonathan teams up with the secret agents Ben (George Kennedy) and George (Brenda Venus), the team begins an ambitious climb up the mountains of Switzerland. At 129 minutes, The Eiger Sanction is a fairly long film that dedicates a majority of its runtime to these critical climbing sequences. At times, it feels as if the film drops all notions of being a spy thriller and becomes a survival adventure.
Unfortunately, the production of The Eiger Sanction was just as dangerous as it looked on the screen, as Eastwood insisted on doing all of his own stunts, having trained for months to be a professional mountain climber. The film’s production was shot on location in Grindelwald, Switzerland, with a team of professional climbers helping the crew. While getting coverage of a shot, the mountain climber David Knowles rappelled down the face but was hit with a rock that instantly killed him. Although the notion of abandoning the film was briefly considered, Eastwood and the crew felt that it was important to finish it in order to honor the memory of Knowles and the other brave stunt performers that worked on the project.
‘The Eiger Sanction’ Showed a Different Side of Clint Eastwood
While it has the same sort of grittiness that made the Dirty Harry and “Dollars” films so iconic, The Eiger Sanction suggested that Eastwood could make commercially appealing blockbuster films that merged his more ambitious ideas about espionage with more traditionally rewarding crowd-pleaser elements. It was frankly refreshing to see Eastwood don a tuxedo and deliver the sort of cheeky one-liners that 007 generally made during his adventures. The film was released during the height of Roger Moore’s popularity as James Bond; given how silly that era of the franchise was, Eastwood may have offered a more intimate understanding of the character that Fleming had created.