Where Eagles Dare was published by Collins in 1967. The novel was written simultaneously with the screenplay — an unusual arrangement in which MacLean developed the story for both media at once, at the request of the film’s producer Elliott Kastner, who wanted a vehicle for Richard Burton. The result is MacLean’s most cinematic novel: fast-paced, action-heavy, and built around a series of spectacular set pieces.
A team of British commandos, led by Major John Smith (Burton in the film) and accompanied by the American Lieutenant Schaffer (Clint Eastwood), parachutes into the Bavarian Alps in 1944. Their mission: to rescue Brigadier General Carnaby, an American officer who has been captured by the Germans and is being held in the Schloss Adler — a medieval castle converted into a German intelligence headquarters, accessible only by cable car.
But the rescue mission is a cover for a more complex operation. Smith is not who he appears to be; the mission’s true purpose is not what the team has been told; and the elaborate deceptions — triple agents, false identities, shifting loyalties — make the plot one of MacLean’s most intricate. The reader (and the characters) cannot be certain who is working for whom until the final revelations, and MacLean manages the misdirection with a skill that makes the inevitable twist both surprising and logically satisfying.
The 1968 film — starring Burton and Eastwood — became one of the most successful war films of its era and is now regarded as a classic of the genre. The film’s action sequences (the cable car fight, the castle assault) remain thrilling, and the Burton-Eastwood pairing generates a chemistry that the novel’s characters, necessarily less charismatic, do not quite achieve.
Collecting Where Eagles Dare
First edition (Collins, London, 1967): Cloth with dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine/fine: $200–$500
- Very good: $75–$200