Valley of the Eagles

When Dr Nils Ahlen develops a device that can capture and utilise the energy of sound he naturally becomes the target of the government, be it in the energy field or weapons development. Having convinced his employers of his discovery, Ahlen returns to his home to get his full files only to find that his wife and his partner have gone missing – along with information vital to the development of the technology. With the help of the local police (Inspector Peterson), Ahlen sets out after the two to prevent them getting the information into the hands of the Russians.

In the opening ten minutes of this film things look good – the tone is dark, the wartime plot looks like it will produce a slick and exciting conspiracy/chase thriller and I must admit I settled down for a good "romp". However, not long into the chase the film decides to dump all this silly stuff and becomes some sort of wilderness adventure instead. At this point I tried to stay with the film but it became too stodgy and uninteresting for its own good and the melodrama of the whole affair failed to engage me. The script is pretty talky and, without character development, it didn't keep me with it; instead it throws in wolves and vultures and elements of "savage" life but not in such a way that is fun or entertaining in any sense of the word.

The cast can't do much with it and they come off pretty clunky and wooden. McCallum and Warner have the hardest jobs as they try to lead the film but, from their performances I can only assume that they were as unconvinced and as bored by the whole thing as I was. Dawson and Wood have potentially interesting characters and Wood does have some good scenes but the film doesn't help her by developing those around her to support her emotions within her marriage. The direction is OK but the stock footage is far too obvious and obtrusive.

Overall this starts out well but then becomes a plodding adventure story in the snowy wilderness; near the end it tries to look at the emotions of Ahlen's marriage briefly but it doesn't spend the time on it that that thread deserved. The end result showed potential but the majority of it is boring and flat and produced a film that is watchable at points but mostly not really worth a look.

This is a hugely enjoyable and surprising film. It starts out as a standard post-war spy thing with a Swedish scientist (John McCallum) inventing some thingy that turns sound to light (or whatever). It's stolen by his wife and his best friend. He ends up with the police where a copper (Jack Warner) doesn't seem terribly interested or efficient. But after a few false starts, they learn the pair of thieves is on the run with the gizmo to Finland where they plan to sell it to the Russians. McCallum and Warner take chase. And this is when the film takes off as well. The culprits have chosen to take a northern route across the frozen north, so the good guys join up with a group of reindeer herders since there are no roads. The herders will guide them across the frozen expanse of Lapland. Among the herders is the fetching Nadia Gay.

The trek is difficult. The reindeer are contrary. And they're being followed by a pack of wolves. from this point on there's one surprise after another until they get to the valley of the eagles. The ending is a tad abrupt, but it's a hell of an adventure.

The Cold War was seldom chillier than this travelogue set in Lapland that begins with wintry location work in Stockholm (were we encounter Isak Borg's mother, Naima Wifstrund, and Gösta Cederlund, who had recently featured in Bergman's own Cold War drama, 'This Can't Happen Here'), before hero John McCallum and copper Jack Warner set off it hot pursuit of the film's 'MacGuffin': rectifiers & condensers for a device for converting sound waves into enough energy to light an entire city or (if the Baddies get their way) level them.

But this is just a pretext for a chase thriller framed around footage of reindeer, wolves and an avalanche with the Swedish actors dubbed into English and most of the rest shot back at Pinewood (which is presumably where the scenes featuring Christopher Lee & Euan Solon as a grim-faced pair of detectives were shot). Director Terence Young was reunited a few years later with villain Anthony Dawson on 'Dr No'.

A below par British action thriller. I use both words in their broadest terms as what is supposed to be a chase across the Finish mountains turns into a nature film on the lives of the Laplanders for a large length of the film.

The lead characters deliver their lines so woodenly that if you closed your eyes they could be reading out loud from a drawing room in Hampstead Heath, so any attempt at pace is lost, not that there was much of an attempt in the first place.

If anything you have to sympathise with one of the villains, on the grounds that they want to 'get away from it all'.

Only worth while if it is on TV on a wet afternoon, when it is marginally better than watching rain hitting the window.

The gist of this story is settled pretty quickly as a secret sonic device is pinched by "Sven" (Anthony Dawson) and "Helga" (Mary Laura Wood) the wife of it's inventor from their Stockholm home. Off they set across country, making for Finland and then the USSR. Hot on their tails are intrepid detective "Peterson" (Jack Warner) and the scientist "Ahlen" (John McCallum) who are both determined to stop them before they can sell the gadget to the Soviets. The espionage elements of this are all relatively plain sailing, but the photography of the Arctic wilderness as they give chase is what really makes this worth a gander. There are reindeer by the hundreds being herded by the locals; their lives free of technology and their innate friendliness meaning that these folks look after all comers. Just as that helps those pursuing, it helped those fleeing too. It all culminates in a pristine valley where the snow clings, precariously, to the sides of the mountains ensuring that the local population use only eagles to hunt - silence isn't so much golden as essential. Can the chasing pair catch up with their antagonists in time? Warner really only ever had one gear, and he doesn't challenge himself (or us) with his characterisation here. Dawson delivers competently as he usually does when he is the baddie, and the others contribute adequately, if maybe just a bit too verbosely, as the adventure slowly advances amidst the snow and ice to a denouement that is just a little different. It's nothing special, this film, but I thought the last ten minutes just about made it worth the watch - and, yes, there are a few eagles, too.