Eagles Over London

Here's an oddity - an Italian made war film that is actually quite good. Okay the dubbing is bad, and the locations are a bit "mediterranean" particularly Dover and Dunkirk, but all in all a well made war film. Its the story of a group of German commandos who intermix with returning British troops from Dunkirk, and wearing British uniforms attempt to destroy the radar installations around the coast and therefore aid the imminant German invasion. A British Captain played by Frederick Stafford attempts to track down the Germans aided by Van Johnson as a British Air Marshal - an odd bit of casting, but I'm sure the aging Van welcomed the money.

This comes up for sale on video every now and then, and I recommend it to war film buffs.

From the director of the original 'Inglorious Bastards', this war film contrives rather cheekily to transpose the English-speaking Germans behind enemy lines from the Ardennes Offensive to the aftermath of Dunkirk; while there's plenty of dramatic spectacle on what was doubtless a fraction of the sort of budget Tarantino later had to play with.

Using the chaos of the Dunkirk evacuation as a cover, several German agents take on the identities of English soldiers in order to gain access to England and take out the radar installations. One Captain aware of the ruse has to track the men down and stop them before the Germans can bomb England into surrendering.

Good, if a bit long, spy story set in London. there are several action set pieces that are quite good, though they suffer a great deal in pan and scan because of the use of multiple images. (Oh how this film cries out for a good letterbox edition.) This is the sort of film that grabs you from the first couple of moments and then drags you along at its conclusion. I really liked this and probably should have rated it higher than 6 but I think the viewing experience was really hindered by a lack of widescreen.

Worth searching out, especially if you can find a wide screen copy.

This is an odd case of casting, as the very American actor, Van Johnson, plays a British officer! However, despite this, the film looks very good for an Italian-made WWII film--sort of like a 'spaghetti' war film. For example, the Dunkirk scene was quite nice and had a pretty expansive look--with a relatively large cast and lots of ships. And SOME of the airplanes were done well (such as the fake He-111 cockpits--VERY nice). Unfortunately, the rest of the planes in the film are an odd lot--probably because the original models weren't available to the Italian film company. The German fighters were often American T-6s or even British Spitfires and the Spitfires were sometimes some odd plane (I assume Italian) that looks a bit like it but whose cockpit and undercarriage look more like that of the German Bf-109. To make it even more confusing, the exact same plane was often used interchangeably by BOTH sides in the film. And, at one point a British fighter plane becomes a Lysander observation plane. Clearly the film's attention to these sort of details was pretty poor...at best. And, late in the film the planes are CLEARLY cheap models. It's best to just close your eyes or so get a snack during these scenes because even if you don't care about these details, it still will confuse you.

The plot itself is rather clever. At Dunkirk, a group of Germans who speak English well are chosen to assume the identities of dead British soldiers. Then, when the British army is rescued, these agents can then infiltrate the country and eventually attack the Brit's most important secret weapon--their radar.

The bulk of the film is executed reasonably well (not always great--but not bad) and it's obvious they spend some money on the film. However, there were a few problems. The punching sounds in the fight scenes sounded EXACTLY like the punching sounds from a kung fu film! There also was a scene involving the killing of a German female agent and it was silly and WAY overdone--and completely unnecessary. All together, the film was very uneven but the good still far outweighed the bad. I would really love to see this film re-done--with a tighter script and more consistent special effects.

It's the Dunkirk evacuation in 1940. British soldiers fight bravely in a rear guard action. They encounter German soldiers dressed in British uniforms. They're killed and their identities stolen. The Germans secretly board the ships to England and work to sabotage the war effort. They zero in on the new radar installations.

No expense was spared in recreating Dunkirk. There are lots of extras and lots of explosions. Captain Paul Stevens is shown to have discovered the dead soldiers and he suspects infiltration. The problem is that he fails to catch the first guy. It seems like a great opportunity to confirm the situation to him so that when the higher ups refuse to accept it, it becomes even more intense. The fact that he gets full cooperation saps the movie of its potential tension. The other fact that an enemy gets so close to him detracts from the audience's opinion of the Captain. The problem is that the film loses intensity once they get home from Dunkirk.

There is a laughable miniature scene. There is bad history. The radar stations don't look like that. Most of them are located in remote places along the coast. The film becomes a lot flatter after a rip roaring start. The reinvention of the Battle of Britain gets to a wrong place. I guess that there is some good action. Even there, there is too much big dying in the shootouts. I'm willing to give this a pass for some fun action.