The Eagle Has Landed: A Movie Review

I'm grateful to have grown up in a home where my parents were readers. It seems like my father was always reading something, and from time to time he'd tell me about an author or book that he thought I' like. One of the books my dad suggested was Jack Higgins' The Eagle Has Landed. When I read it, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

No, it's not a book about the Apollo mission to the moon. Rather, it is a novel about an incident that could have occurred during World War II, an attempt to kidnap Winston Churchill. Intense, gripping and vivid, the author masterfully crafts a tale that can leave you sitting at the edge of your seat. I couldn't put it down.

The final payoff is the lingering question: did this really happen? Published in 1975, it became an instant bestseller. By 1976 it had already been translated to film featuring Michael Caine, Robert Duvall and Donald Sutherland in starring roles. As of 2010 the book had sold 50 million copies worldwide, no small feat. 

Having said all that, how could such a great story and star-laden film have been such a dud? 

First, the story. The film's tagline is "In 1943 sixteen German paratroopers landed in England. In three days they nearly won the War." 

With the war not going Hitler's way, a high ranking officer--Heinrich Himmler-- believes that a bold, outrageous action like kidnapping Churchill would give the Nazis a bargaining chip. Another officer is asked to do a feasibility study, which is intended to show how ridiculous the idea is. But, surprise! The Germans have someone planted on the North coast of the British Isles and it just so happens that an intercepted communique reveals that Churchill is actually going to be there for a brief period of time.

The Germans then drew up a plan to bring an elite team that can parachute in at night (it seemed to me that they were brought in by submarine in the book, though I may be mistaken) and move in to the town in British uniforms. 

The problem with the film--not the book--is that some of the acting is sappy. Donald Sutherland is a bit of a goofball, as he can sometimes be, which in this case seems more distraction from the mission rather than amplification of its seriousness. When the fighting breaks out later in the film there are some other absurd antics that also detract from the overall plausibility of the film version of this story. 

EdNote: There was nothing silly or out of character in the novel, so I'm sure Jack Higgins, the author, must have cringed when the film hit cinemas.

In reading the reviews at imdb.com I was surprised at how many people thought it was a great film. One imdb.com reviewer called it "pitch perfect novel adaptation." He must have been on crack. The film falls so far short of the novel that it can't help but disappoint anyone who has read the original source. (IMHO)

I like the review titled The Eagle hasn't landed as well as it should. I liked the title of another's review: The Eagle Has Crashed.

It's disappointing when a director takes a great story and plays it in the wrong key. Brian De Palma did that with Bonfire of the Vanities, and John Sturges does that here.

I give the book five stars, the film two.

Moonwalk

It's an incredible story -- breathtaking, nail-biting, mind-numbing, mesmerizing, awesome, fascinating, ethereal, unbelievable, stupefying, amazing, astonishing, spectacular and more. And one we have taken so very much for granted. For this reason if for no other, I recommend the book Rocket Men by Craig Nelson.

It's an epic moment in history and when Armstrong and Aldrich begin their descent toward the lunar surface, it's a compelling read. Nelson takes you there.

Most of us are familiar with the story, have at least read something about the "space race" that preoccupied so many Americans in the Sixties. The Russians were first in outer space, so like boys trying to outdo one another the Americans needed to be first to land a man on the moon. They accomplished this feat by a strenuous effort of will that involved billions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of highly motivated individuals and the best minds science had to offer. When Neil Armstrong finally placed his feet on that unearthly world, he correctly said, "One small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind."

In reading this book there are so many details I'd forgotten about this regarding fantastic voyage, if I ever knew them at all. Here are just a few.

1. When the Eagle (the spacecraft that conveyed Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong to their final destination in the Sea of Tranquility) descended, the ground was covered with boulders so that there was no suitable place to land. The flew horizontally for several minutes seeking a safe place to touch down, but as they did so they were running out of fuel. The landed with only about 17 seconds of fuel left.

2. Our bodies here on earth stay cool by means of sweat. This process only works because of the atmosphere on earth. On the moon, when Armstrong and Aldrin were running about setting up experiments while carrying 170 pound backpacks, they would have overheated had they not have suits that circulated water and kept their body temps normal.

3.Those 170 pound backpacks were bulky, but only weighed one-sixth their weight, so the mass was less massive than it appears.

4. No atmosphere on the moon means the sun looks different in the sky. And the color of the sky is black, by day or night. our earthly sky appears blue because the gases and particles in our atmosphere scatter the sunlight. Blue light waves are shorter than red ones so that as the light is reflected it's the primary color we see during our day.

5. The engineers who designed the Eagle took so many details into consideration, but still did not know what to expect when it landed. How deep was the lunar dust? They expected it to be deeper than it was, so the prong-legs of the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) were longer than needed. The bottom rung of the ladder, when Armstrong climbed down, was more than three feet up and not an easy dismount.

6. The author makes clear that everyone who has gone to the moon has been profoundly moved by the look back home at the earth. From the moon, one can completely cover the earth with one's thumb. The smallness of our world in this immense universe was experienced deeply by each of these men.

7. One of the things I've never heard anyone talk about or write about is how complex and challenging basic hygiene was. Specifically urinating and defecating. Reading this section made it clear to me that space travel is definitely not for everyone. Nor does weightlessness and vomiting seem too exciting to me.

8. The colorlessness of the moon was interesting. "I'd never seen so many shades of grey," one of the astronauts said.

9. Another thing that was striking for the astronauts was how soundless it all was. It was also pointed out that the men did not hear their breathing like you hear in Hollywood outer space films. That was added by the studios.

When you read the reviews on Amazon you'll see plenty of criticism because of the quantity of factual errors. Despite this, and many of the critics agree, it's still a good read and a great reminder of what can be accomplished when people work together for a high goal.

Meantime.... Happy Valentines Day. 

The Eagle Has Landed

Neil Armstrong passed away yesterday. He was 82.

In an age where the biggest benefit of knowing facts and dates is for getting points in games like Trivia Pursuit, we often take for granted and fail to fully comprehend the meaning of these events or their subsequent benefits. The technical commitment to achieving a moonwalk resulted in innumerable gizmos and gadgets that are now ho hum to us. Improvements in miniaturization was just one of the many requirements for accomplishing the Columbia endeavor. But there have been countless overall benefits in the fields of health and medicine, transportation, public safety, consumer goods, computer technology and industrial productivity.

My first blog entry in the summer of 2007 was titled "One Small Step for a Man, One Giant Leap..." Neil Armstrong's declaration 38 years earlier was evidently still rattling around inside my head. These were words that reverberated throughout the world. A man, a human being like one of us, had set foot on the moon, a true rocket man. And there were no Golden Arches there yet.

To read more, Dan Vergano's USA Today story is a concise, nicely done tribute. Neil Armstrong: A quiet hero who left his mark on history

Urban Myth: NASA developed teflon for the space program.