Eagle Has Landed

John Sturges's adaptation of Jack Higgins's best-selling suspense novel stars Michael Caine as Nazi Col. Kurt Steiner. When the Nazi high command learns in late 1943 that Winston Churchill will be spending time at a country estate in Norfolk, it hatches an audacious scheme to kidnap the prime minister and spirit him to Germany for enforced negotiations with Der Fuhrer. Heinrich Himmler (Donald Pleasence) assigns Col. Max Radl (Robert Duvall) to mastermind the operaton. He enlists the aid of Steiner, who has been imprisoned for subordination and is awaiting sentence, by offering him a chance to save his life. Liam Devlin (Donald Sutherland), an IRA lifer who hates the British, also signs on for the mission. Steiner and his commando team parachute into the small village of Sudley disguised as Polish soldiers and appear to the populace to be paratroopers running through exercises. As they await the arrival of Churchill, one of the commandos rescues a boy from drowning in a nearby river, inadvertently revealing his Nazi colours in the process. Steiner realises that some changes will have to made in his timetable. THE EAGLE HAS LANDED is an enjoyable Alistair MacLean-like mission impossible, ably served by Sturges and a stellar cast.