The Eiger Sanction is a 1975 American action film directed by and starring Clint Eastwood. Based on the 1972 novel The Eiger Sanction by Trevanian, the film is about Jonathan Hemlock, an art history professor, mountain climber, and former assassin once employed by a secret government agency, who is blackmailed into returning to his deadly profession for one last mission.
Hemlock agrees to join an international climbing team in Switzerland (which is planning an ascent of the Eiger north face) to avenge the murder of an old friend. The Eiger Sanction was produced by Robert Daley for Eastwood's Malpaso Company, with Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown as executive producers, and co-starred George Kennedy, Vonetta McGee, and Jack Cassidy.
Principal photography started on August 12, 1974, and ended in late September 1974. The picture was filmed on location on the Eiger mountain and Zürich in Switzerland, in Monument Valley and Zion National Park in the American Southwest, and in Carmel-by-the-Sea and Monterey in California. Special equipment and handheld cameras were employed to film the climbing sequences. Eastwood did his own climbing and stunt work under dangerous conditions. Twenty-six-year-old British climber David Knowles, a member of the crew, died on the Eiger during the production. The film score was composed by John Williams.
The Eiger Sanction was released in New York City on May 21, 1975, and received mixed reviews. The general reaction among many reviewers offered criticism of the story and screenplay, and praise for the climbing footage and action sequences. The film, which was made with a budget of $9 million, earned $14.2 million at the box office. The Eiger Sanction was first released on DVD in 1998 and on Blu-ray in 2015 by Universal Studios.
Plot
Art professor and mountaineer, Jonathan Hemlock, is a retired government assassin called on to return to work for two more "sanctions", a euphemism for officially approved killings. During his career with a secret government agency called C-2, Hemlock amassed a private collection of 21 rare masterpiece paintings, paid for from his previous sanctions. The director of C-2, Dragon, is an albino ex-Nazi confined to semi-darkness and kept alive by blood transfusions. Dragon wants Hemlock to kill two men responsible for the death of another government agent, code name Wormwood. Insisting he is retired, Hemlock refuses until Dragon threatens to expose Hemlock's art collection to the Internal Revenue Service. Hemlock agrees, and travels to Zürich, where he carries out the first sanction by killing two hitmen for $20,000, twice his usual fee (), and a letter guaranteeing him that he would receive no trouble from the IRS.
Returning from Europe, Hemlock meets air stewardess Jemima Brown, unbeknownst to him a C-2 courier, who seduces him. While he is asleep, she steals his money and IRS exemption letter. Dragon agrees to return them if Hemlock completes the second sanction. Hemlock is reluctant, but agrees when he learns that the C-2 agent that was killed, Wormwood, was in fact his old friend Henri Baq. Hemlock is an ex-Green Beret, and he and Baq had served together during the Vietnam War, where Baq saved his life. Dragon agrees to pay him $100,000 () plus expenses, and tells him the target is a member of an international mountain-climbing team that will soon attempt an ascent of the north face of the Eiger mountain in Switzerland. Hemlock will be the American member of the team, and must kill one of the climbers; Dragon is uncertain of the target's identity other than the man walks with a limp.
Hemlock travels to Arizona to train at a climbing school run by a friend, Ben Bowman, who whips him back into shape with the help of an attractive Native American woman named George. Hemlock also encounters an enemy, Miles Mellough, a former ally from the military, who years before had betrayed him in Southeast Asia. Mellough somehow knows a great deal of what Hemlock is planning. He bargains for his life by offering to tell Hemlock which climber is the target. Hemlock refuses, so Mellough tries to kill Hemlock by hiring George to seduce and drug him, but Hemlock survives. Later, Hemlock lures Mellough and his bodyguard miles into the desert, shoots and kills the bodyguard, and leaves Mellough to die in the sun.
Hemlock travels to Switzerland with Bowman, the supervisor for the climb, and meets the other three climbers at the Hotel Bellevue des Alpes, in view of the Eiger. The headstrong and condescending German member, Karl Freytag, presents his proposed route up the mountain, and the team agrees that he will lead the group. The following morning, the men begin their ascent of the Eiger north face, but soon the weather conditions become poor. The older French climber is struck by falling rocks and continues, but dies in his sleep that night. With Hemlock now leading the expedition, the surviving members retreat towards a tunnel window that connects to the Eigerwand railway station, carrying the dead climber between them. At the last moment, climbers Freytag, Meyer, and the body fall off the mountain. Hemlock is saved, dangling alone a few metres from the tunnel window.
Bowman and a rescue crew make their way through the Eiger to the tunnel window, where they attempt to throw a rope to Hemlock. Hemlock notices Bowman is suddenly limping, a sign that identifies him as Hemlock's target. Hemlock says, "You're limping, Ben," reluctant to trust that Bowman will rescue him. Bowman throws him the rope, and Hemlock attaches it, then reluctantly cuts his own rope. He falls onto Bowman's rope, and is pulled safely into the tunnel. On the train ride back, Bowman admits he became involved with "the other side" years earlier, but claims he had no idea that Kruger would kill Henri Baq. Bowman explains he had become involved with Miles Mellough, to whom he was indebted for getting his daughter, George, off drugs.
Back at Kleine Scheidegg, Bowman approaches Hemlock, looking to mend his relationship with him. Hemlock takes a phone call from Dragon, who is convinced that since C-2 was never able to positively identify the target, Hemlock killed all three of the other climbers intentionally to ensure he completed the job. Hemlock tells Bowman that C-2 believes the target died on the mountain, and there is no reason to tell them otherwise. After Bowman leaves, Jemima Brown joins Hemlock and asks him if he really killed all three climbers intentionally. Hemlock just smiles.
Cast
Production
Development The film is based on the 1972 thriller novel The Eiger Sanction by Trevanian, a pseudonym for Rodney William Whitaker, a University of Texas film professor. It was Trevanian's first novel, and was written as an intentional spoof of James Bond novels. Universal Studios purchased the rights to the film in November 1972, soon after the novel was published. In late November 1972, screenwriter Hal Dresner was hired to adapt the novel with the author Trevanian, credited as Rod Whitaker as a screenwriter. In April 1973, Paul Newman was originally cast in the lead role of Jonathan Hemlock. Dresner and Trevanian prepared two drafts of the screenplay, which were provided to Newman. Disappointed with the results and believing the story was too violent, Newman opted out of the project. In late 1973, Universal producers Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown approached Eastwood with the project.
Eastwood saw serious flaws with the novel and the script, which had gone through three revisions and a rewrite by the time he read it. Eastwood was never interested in espionage as a subject or the spy thriller as a genre, but he was attracted to the project for two reasons. Disappointed with the way Universal handled his first directorial efforts—Play Misty for Me (1971) and Breezy (1973), he was looking to move to Warner Bros, where studio head Frank Wells was offering an open invitation, and Eiger represented a way to close out his contract. More importantly, the project offered Eastwood the opportunity to work in relative isolation on location in Switzerland, away from the distractions of the studio. He was also happy to be surrounded by a small, but efficient cast and crew. On January 31, 1974, Universal announced that Eastwood was contracted to both star in and co-produce The Eiger Sanction with his own Malpaso Productions and Universal Pictures.
In a 1976 interview with author Patrick McGilligan for Focus on Film, Eastwood described the essential problems with the novel: "The book has no ties. In other words, the character that is killed at the beginning has no relationship to anybody else. I just took it and tried to make the guy relate to the hero so the hero had some motivations. The way the book was written, he had no motivations for anything. He just went up there strictly for monetary gain, no other motivation, period."
Believing that improvements could be made to the script, Eastwood contacted novelist Warren B. Murphy — known for his The Destroyer assassin series — in February 1974, and asked for his assistance, despite Murphy never having read the book nor written for a film before. Murphy read the novel and agreed to write the script, but he was unhappy with the novel's tone, which he believed patronized readers. Murphy completed a draft in late March and a revised script a month later. Eastwood also felt that the authenticity of the climbing sequences he envisioned would compensate for the narrative's shortcomings.
From the beginning, Eastwood planned to shoot the mountaineering scenes on location, and that he would do his own climbing without a stunt double. "The challenge of it for me," he would later explain, "was to actually shoot a mountain-type film on a mountain, not on sets. The only ones done in the past were all done on sets; the mountains were all papier-mâché mountains." In late May 1974, Universal announced that Eastwood would also direct the film, and that principal photography was scheduled to start on August 1, 1974, at the Eiger mountain in Switzerland. Universal vice president Jennings Lang would supervise the production.
Pre-production As soon as he signed on to the project, Eastwood took complete control of the production. He worked with soundman Peter Pilafian to develop lightweight, disposable batteries to power a specially adapted camera and sound equipment needed to film on the mountain. He also hired Mike Hoover to serve as climbing adviser for the film. Hoover had made an Academy Award-nominated documentary short titled Solo about his lone ascent of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. Eastwood had seen and admired the documentary, and hired Hoover to train him on how to look professional during the climbing scenes, and to serve as principal cameraman on the more dangerous climbing sequences.
Intent on doing his own climbing for the film, Eastwood accompanied Hoover to Yosemite in early July to train and climb the Lost Arrow Spire, a detached pillar in Yosemite Valley located adjacent to Upper Yosemite Falls. While he had done some rock climbing in his youth, 44-year-old Eastwood was not prepared for the levels of difficulty presented by the climb. Hoover later recalled, "He looked up at me and said, 'Gee, I don't think I can make it.' I said, 'Well, Clint, you really don't have much choice, do you?' Then he reacted characteristically—he got pissed off. He pulled in his chin and gritted his teeth and with absolutely no technique at all, just blood and guts, he mossed his way up. No skill, no brains, just pure muscle."