How many of those dynamite bombs did they have?? - Where Eagles Dare (1969) Discussion

[–] hobohemian 13 years ago

Yes, I thought that was ridiculous when I first saw the film in 1968. Those haversacks were like Mary Poppins' carpet bag. Smith and Schaeffer seem to lug all that weight around pretty easily too!

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[–] IamTheCheese2 13 years ago

haha, I thought the exact same thing. I guess if you're packing for an espionage / rescue mission, you should anticipate using an endless supply of dynamite!

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[–] reaper1620 13 years ago

Lmao that was one of my favorite things. They just kept pulling huge wads of dynamite out of the bag. Bottomless dynamite bag. Hilarious.

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[–] johnjunk 13 years ago

Has anyone counted how many dynamite bundles they brought with them? They used a few to booby-trap the storage building earlier, quite a few more in the fireplace room of the castle. I think they whipped out some more during the escape, plus the one Burton used in the cable car. There were a bunch more along the side of the road as they were making their bus getaway, and they brought out some more to blow up the bridge!

I didn't count, but it seems like 20+ wads of dynamite.

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[–] Trebaby 12 years ago

And they handled the lot rather perilously if you ask me.

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[–] ccoombs-1 12 years ago

They use 12 dynamite bundles in the castle: 6 in the conference room, 1 in a records room, 1 in an ammunition room, 1 tossed out the window into a gun bunker, 1 in the room while hiding, and 1 for each cable car. That’s only 12.

Mary Ure enters the conference room with a suitcase containing supplies from the two backpacks brought into the castle. Inside you can see 12 dynamite bundles visible. Pay attention people...

Outside the castle only 8 bundles are shown being used: 1 to escape the shed, and 7 on the road linked to poles (7 poles are shown hit by the bus, 6 explosions are shown).

All in all that is a total of 20 dynamite bundles. All accounted for and easily carried in the backpacks.Very easily.

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[–] Altho73 12 years ago

The whole movie was ridiculous from start to finish.

The Germans made the ridiculous error of issuing their soldiers with blanks.

The security at a top secret castle was unbelievably lax.

The Schloss Adler that could only be approached by cable car and was protected by an entire battalian of Nazi troopers could be overcome by a handful of allied agents.

No one ever saw any of the agents plant the booby trap bombs.

No suspected spies would ever have been treated so gently by the Nazis.

Mary Ure's hairdresser was also parachuted in but was for some reason he or she remained hidden and was never seen on film.

The Germans had Bell helicopters during WW2 despite the fact that they were American and never produced until 1946.

British Intelligence had been exceptionally successful in rooting out Nazi agents so by 1944 there is no way that there would have been so many Nazi agents in high positions.

It is ridiculous that British Intelligence would have gone to such lengths to expose those agents.

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[–] ccoombs-1 12 years ago

The movie was pure escapist fun.

The Germans weren't issued blanks, as the damage to the castle walls and the bus show. They just weren't able to kill the heroes, as in ANY action/war movie. Or at least I can't think of a movie where the heroes die. (Except Sands of Iwo Jima or The Alamo.) How many times has James Bond been shot at? How many times has Bruce Willis, or Stallone, or Diesel, or Statham?

The castle wasn't top secret. It was remote. Big difference. It's not so much to expect the heroes to infiltrate a base. Been done countless times in countless movies. As Burton says in the movie, 'what are 6 new faces among 600 new faces.'

No one saw them plant the bombs because they planted them in areas where no on was at that moment. You don't plant a bomb IN FRONT of someone...

What's wrong with Mary Ure's hair?

There is another board dealing with the helicopter issue, where people vociferously debate whether Germans had helicopters, what the model names were, how many they had, what precise date they acquired them, how many they may have had, in what unit might they have belonged, for what purpose, were they active service, general service, or just for experimental service, blah, blah, blah.
Point is helicopters existed, its not a stretch that one would be used to ferry an officer to such a remote post. Take a 40s era helicopter an slap a swastika on it. For the sake of the movie it works fine, is plausible and it's not a vital plot point that the whole movie depends on.

The Nazi agents aren't the point of the movie. They are the 'macguffin' (As Hitchcock would say). As in any James Bond film for example, the macguffin is just an excuse for the adventure. It may be stolen microfilm, radioactive materials, or plans for a new bomb sight. It's not important WHAT the macguffin is, what IS important is the journey the character takes in trying to acquire it. In this case, it's not important whether the men are Nazi agents, what IS important is the quest Burton and Eastwood go on - the difficulties they encounter, and how they overcome them.

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