MovieChat Forums > Where Eagles Dare (1969) Discussion > error? (cable cars)

error? (cable cars)

posted 15 years ago by vandwedge
3 replies | jump to latest

I saw this movie for the first time last night, and I don't know if this has been addressed anywhere else. It probably has.

SPOILERS, obviously.

Anyway near the end of the movie, when it's time for the downwards descent in the cable cars. Burton is on top of the cable car, and he knocks the guy off of it. Then he plants some dynamite on it, and jumps to the other cable car. Then the first cable car blows up.

When it blows up, wouldn't you expect the cable to be destroyed? Since the dynamite was on top of the car? But moments later, everyone's riding another car down on that same cable, like the explosion never happened. Is this an error or am I just missing something....

All the plot you need is that The Warriors have to "bop their way back to Coney." —alanmc1uk

[–] christopherbkk 15 years ago

I thought this too. However, what I laughed at was that Burton successfully jumps from one cable car to the other. From a standing start he makes what must be a 30foot jump!
There is a lot like this in this movie, so we must try not to think too much. Just enjoy it for what it is.

[–] Hungerhill 14 years ago

With a mangled hand as well!

[–] Bogdan_A74 15 years ago

As far as I know, the cable car is passive, it is pulled with the thinner cable and sustained by the thicker cable. The thinner cable is connected just below the wheels that runs on the thicker cable. The charge was mounted on the bottom of the boom that sustains the cabin, and probably, when exploded, it cuts the boom, leaving the top side intact. The cabin falls down, killing the person in it, and the thinner cable remains intact, allowing the second car to continue ascending. Should the thinner cable been cut, tension in cable would have been zero and the second car would stop ascending, start descending and accelerating downwards, arriving catastrophically at the bottom station, and the end of the thinner cable would have killed anyone on the upper station as it would unwind like a whip, being pulled down through the station.

So the cable was left intact (the blast force is very weak since the exposed surface to the blast is much smaller for a cable compared to the cabin or the boom.