Just got The Eiger Sanction on DVD. I recommend it - it holds up pretty well, Jack Cassidy is great, great on location climbing scenes, lots of good (if sexist) lines.
But, there are two lines of dialog that flew right by me - probably b/c I’m too young to know what they’re talking about. (I was 5 when it came out).
First one: Clint is in training and that unbelievably beautiful Indian American woman has him jogging after her, and at one point he says “Screw Marlon Brando!” Huh?
Next one: George Kennedy says “They found Miles Mellow in the sand. Dead as Kelly’s nuts.” Again, I say, huh?
Also, I never noticed this before - but (on the outside chance that someone reading this hasn’t seen it, I’ll use the spoiler tag) did Clint really deliberately kill all three of the other climbers, or was it an accident? And when Vonetta McGee says “You didn’t really sanction all three of them, did you?” does that imply that she’s still working for Dragon and trying to get that out of him?
Brando is represented by an Indian, Sasheen Littlefeather, at the Oscar ceremony on March 27th 1973 and she makes the following declaration: “To his great regret Marlon Brando feels unable to accept his award. The reasons lie in the treatment of the Indian in TV and the movies in this country, and in the recent events at Wounded Knee.”
Yeah, it made more sense back in 1973… Probably wasn’t funny then either.
Thanks for the link Finagle! I had never heard anything at all about that! It’s so weird when you discover something like that for the first time and everybody else knows all about it. Kinda like when you learn a new word, then hear it used or read it somewhere a few days later.
As for the 2nd quote, I just replayed the DVD in my G4, and the line is really "“They found Miles in the sand. Dead as Kelsy’s nuts.” Kelsy, not Kelly. Not that this distinction makes it any more clear to me, but maybe it will to one of you guys. (No, there’s nobody named Kelsy in the movie, dead or otherwise)
Kelsey’s exists in print from 1933. With the “nuts” addition, only from the 1950’s in print.
Lighter speculates, with good cites, that it possibly referred to The Kelsey Wheel Co. who made wheels for the auto industry in the 1920’s. Their nuts were welded on. They were “dead”/permanent.
NO hint that it came from racing. I would think that it might have been not uncommon in the 1930’s-1960’s. Definitely uncommon in the last 20-30 years.
I got a question about this stupid movie: How the hell did they not know who it was they were supposed to whack? I mean, come on! The narrow it down to “someone going on a climb up the Eiger” (or something like that, its been a while and I have been trying to forget this piece of shit since I saw it). Like they couldn’t automaticly rule everyone else out except the killer?
Just seemed like such a stupid plot setup to me. What gives? What am I missing? The only good thing was watching the Indian girl jog.
I got a question about this stupid movie: How the hell did they not know who it was they were supposed to whack? I mean, come on! They narrow it down to “someone going on a climb up the Eiger” (or something like that, its been a while and I have been trying to forget this piece of shit since I saw it). Like they couldn’t automaticly rule everyone else out except the killer?
Just seemed like such a stupid plot setup to me. What gives? What am I missing? The only good thing was watching the Indian girl jog.
“Dead as Kelsey’s Nuts” is an expression? I have never, ever, ever heard that before. I thought it was some timely 70’s political in-joke. Ah well - thanks for your help everyone!
You thought that was good, but you didn’t think it was a good thing when she got stark raving naked later in the movie? (How could you forget THAT scene - it was my main reason for buying it!)
I’m sorry you thought it was a stupid piece of shit, I found it to be quite enjoyable. Besides, why do you want to know plot points if you’ve been trying to forget it for 27 years? They didn’t know who it was b/c he was a sneaky spy. ::shrug:: Worked for me.
And Clint Eastwood did pretty much all of his own climbing. Afterwords he realised that everyone assumed it was a stuntman and he decided not to do that again.
Did he sanction them all? I don’t think there’s any way of knowing, that’s what makes it such a good ending.
It’s been a while since I saw the movie but my hazy recollection is that Clint didn’t intentionally kill any of them. In fact when the last one fell, he was actually quite shocked by it.
actually, he didn’t kill any of them - it was a true accident, and his higher ups ‘assumed’ that he just hit all three. And then NONE of them were the actual killer.
Mind you, I’m working off the original BOOK, not the movie.
Yep, it was accidental, though he later took credit for it just to maintain his bad-ass rep.
In the movie, you clearly see Eastwood’s character struggling like hell to belay as his climbing team is rocketing down the face of the Eiger. In seconds, their combined mass and velocity (they’re on fairly step terrain) blows out Eastwood’s belay and the entire lot of them peel off the side and fall to their screaming deaths. (Very dramatic, but most such falls aren’t accompanied by bloody screams. Things move far too quickly and the climber is trying like hell to save his neck. Fact.)
For a really good read, check out Shoening’s one-man belay on K2–when he successfully belayed and saved the lives of, IIRC, five or six men in a similar catastrophic fall. (Or was it Annapurna?)
To this day, climbers still refer to it as “The Belay.” (Some iconoclasts have argued that his belay was actually accidental.)
[hijack]
This was the first R-rated movie I ever saw. I was in Canarsie, Brookly, NY, visiting relatives, and my grandma took me. She didn’t realize that it was an R-rated movie. I still remember her hissing at me (a 14 year old boy) to close my eyes during the nude scenes.
I never thought Clint killed any of them and thought that it was fairly obvious that it was an accident. He may have led the albino to believe that he killed them all to spare the life of George Kennedy, who was an old friend and saved him on the mountain at the end.
That Ford Bronco they drove around in the dez was so cool, also. Almost as cool as the hot Indian chick! I’ve always wanted one of those, but ended up with a Jeep Commando instead. Didn’t get the hot Indian girl, either, but came close a couple of times! It occurs to me, now that I think about it, that Clint was a great ambassador for race relations in that movie. At the time, a white leading man sackin’ up an Indian and an African-American woman was probably kinda daring.
Why the hell do I remember so much about a movie that kinda sucked? I guess it was kinda cool except for the HUGE GLARING PLOT HOLE that set up all the neato action.
I’ve always wanted one of those, but ended up with a Jeep Commando instead. Didn’t get the hot Indian girl, either, but came close a couple of times!