I should also mention one other movie. IMO, it may well be even better than The Eagle has Landed and that is, “The Guns of Navarone 1961”.
A little more violent than "The Eagle has Landed " but not in a gory way, it has an excellent plot and stars Gregory Peck. When I hear someone say “Movie Star”, I think of Peck.
It’s just my opinion. But from 1960 to the present, I think Gregory Peck just can’t ever do any wrong.
Anyway, The Guns of Navarone has a great plot. It grabs ahold of you right from the beginning and does not let go until the end. I found it so riveting that it was like I was strapped into my seat and could not move until the movie was over. Another great cast:
Gregory Peck, David Niven, Anthony Quinn, Anthony Quale (again), Richard Harris).
Anyway, if you’ve never seen this film, I hope you will give it a try. It has a powerful “grabbing force”. It grabs ahold of you and just never lets go.
It was only rated 7.6 on IMDB. I think that is a terrible rating. It deserves 8.0 or 8.5 at the least.
The Eagle has Landed was only rated 6.9. What a terrible mistake that was. It also deserves at least 8.0 or 8.5.
If you ever see this film, I bet you will never forget the scene with the arrogant British officer and the demented cabin boy. A little humor in an otherwise very serious film.
Sports are to men what soap operas are to women. Broad brush wise, I mean. I didn’t discover this until I started listening to the sports announcers. There’s a storyline to sports. This guy was injured last game, will he make it through today? That guy was traded from the team he’s playing against this week, will his former teammates be able to exploit the weakness they learned from working with him? This kid was a promising player in college, but he’s just not shining in proball, what happened?
So sports movies amplify those storylines, and appeal to men who like stories. Which is everyone.
I find sports boring. And every sports movie seems to have the underdogs rising up to become Tha Winners, and I find that boring. There might be one or two sports movies I do like, but I can’t think of them at this instant. Meh.
I think a lot of war movies are boring, but this may be because when I was young I sat through endless droning black-and-white tv shows about Dubya Dubya Two - documentaries with Walter Cronkite, endless bombs falling from endless airplanes. But not ALL war movies are boring to me. I loved Bridge On the River Kwai and Stalag 17, probably more. (I don’t like the old black and white ones with endless battle scenes that seem to show up on tv on Saturday afternoons - though I suppose Grandpa needs something to watch, too.)
I like the occasional Western, most science fiction, biographies, dramas, social dramas, and musicals. Pretty wide range!
But I am not at all fond of ‘chick’ movies and rom-coms, so I handed in my ‘girl card’ years ago.