'Broadsword Calling Danny Boy': Watching 'Where Eagles Dare'
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'Broadsword Calling Danny Boy': Watching 'Where Eagles Dare' Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Geoff Dyer (Author), Roy MacMillan (Narrator), Random House Audio (Publisher)
4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 330 ratings
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Geoff Dyer's earlier book on film, Zona, was about Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker, so it was perhaps inevitable he should next devote his unique critical and stylistic energies to Brian G. Hutton's Where Eagles Dare.A thrilling Alpine adventure starring a magnificent, bleary-eyed Richard Burton and a dynamically lethargic Clint Eastwood, Where Eagles Dare is the apex of 1960s war movies, by turns enjoyable and preposterous.

Broadsword Calling Danny Boy is Geoff Dyer's hilarious tribute to a film he has loved since childhood: It's a scene-by-scene analysis - or should that be send-up? - taking us from it's snowy, Teutonic opening credits to its vertigo-inducing climax.

Previous page
  1. Listening Length
    2 hours and 22 minutes
  2. Author
    Geoff Dyer
  3. Narrator
    Roy MacMillan
  4. Audible release date
    February 12, 2019
  5. Language
    English
  6. Publisher
    Random House Audio
  7. ASIN
    B088JT968W
  8. Version
    Unabridged
  9. Program Type
    Audiobook
  10. See all details
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Product details

Listening Length 2 hours and 22 minutes
Author Geoff Dyer
Narrator Roy MacMillan
Audible.com Release Date February 12, 2019
Publisher Random House Audio
Program Type Audiobook
Version Unabridged
Language English
ASIN B088JT968W
Best Sellers Rank #339,812 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals)
#456 in Film History & Criticism
#905 in Drama & Plays (Audible Books & Originals)
#1,093 in European Literature (Audible Books & Originals)

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
4.2 out of 5
330 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

HMS Warspite
5.0 out of 5 stars Readers of a certain age...
Reviewed in the United States on June 30, 2021
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Readers of a certain age may remember Mad Magazine and its periodic parodies of popular culture. Its writers and artists had an unerring instinct for pointing out the humor in the implausible and the impossible in movies such as "Hombre" and TV shows such as "Mission Impossible". Thus also British writer Geoff Dyer and the durable Alistair MacLean classic "Where Eagles Dare".

To be fair, "Where Eagles Dare" is one of only two Alistair MacLean-based movies that remain watchable all these many years later (the other is of course "The Guns of Navarone"). The author acknowledges this fact even as he skewers dialogue, action and actors alike. This is a quick read but an enjoyable one, and well recommended to fans of the movie.
One person found this helpful
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Robert H.
4.0 out of 5 stars Nostalgic fun read
Reviewed in the United States on March 27, 2019
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I too find "Eagles" to be a guilty pleasure movie that must be watched whenever I stumble upon it on the TV. While reading this I found myself wishing the author had immortalized my all- time, #1 favorite film and characters: Chris, Vin, Bernardo, Brit, Harry, Chico, Lee and Calvera with this kind of reverance; if you don't recognize these names it is not necessary to identify the movie.
2 people found this helpful
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Kevin Carney
5.0 out of 5 stars Was Where Eagles Dare better than Citizen Kane?
Reviewed in the United States on April 22, 2019
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No, not by a long shot, but I was obsessed with this movie when I was a kid. What a delight to read Dyer's send up. Or paean. Both really. Fun to go back and watch the movie, which while preposterous, holds up well. Dyer is a funny and original writer. Seems to write about, well... whatever he wants. And I'll most likely read it.
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Nick Spill
5.0 out of 5 stars When Eagles Write, how a book about a movie transcends the movie itself
Reviewed in the United States on February 15, 2019
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Reading Dyer's new book, an extended essay or rather prose poem on the film "Where Eagles Dare" is akin to sitting across from him at the dining room table, and after drinking three bottles of fine wine and having drunk ourselves sober, we listen with rapt attention to a too short and rapturous retelling of the film through Dyer's eyes and with his uniquely styled erudition and wit. You might wonder how Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton appeared in the same film two years after Sergio Leone's westerns. (Why are they called spaghetti westerns? They were shot in Spain. They should be called Paella westerns). Perhaps Richard Burton should have been the Welsh Shakespearean trained Sheriff in "The Good The Bad the Ugly, and the Pompously Sober", which would not have been as good as Where Eagles Dare as recounted by Dyer.
The book so enraptured me I forgot I was waiting over two hours to see my Cardiologist who finally informed me after a series of very expensive and insurance driven tests where I was injected with all manner of colorful and radiating liquids, that I did in fact have a heart and that everything was, in the words of Richard Roper in Night Manager "Tickety Boo."
As you can see Dyer's writing has rubbed off on me and not in the manner of stripper glitter. I am ordering all his other books and going to see him read in Santa Monica later this month. Worth the plane fare.
13 people found this helpful
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mojo1971
5.0 out of 5 stars Geoff Dyer is Awesome A++
Reviewed in the United States on May 31, 2019
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I got Dyer's latest book here recently and so wanted to not read it ASAP. I knew I would love it and finish it off in a couple nights, leaving me empty without anymore Dyer books to read. Dyer is, in my opinion, the best reflexive writer on movie appreciation I've ever come across, ever since I read his last movie book, Zona. He's one-of-a-kind. Absolutely brilliant. Dyer's choice to write about Where Eagles Dare, one of my favorite WW2 movies, was inspired. If you don't know Dyer's work yet, you must check him out.
5 people found this helpful
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Ihor Gowda
5.0 out of 5 stars Hilarious yet affectionate takedown
Reviewed in the United States on March 4, 2019
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I first watched Where Eagles Dare when i was a young kid, much like Dyer did. I loved the film then, but Dyer's detailed takedown has me in stitches now. The descriptions of Burton and Eastwood's acting are spectacular. If you "love" the movie but recognize its vast shortcomings, this book will have you laughing and smiling all the way.
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ARB in Brentwood TN
4.0 out of 5 stars Recognize these?
Reviewed in the United States on November 23, 2020
For aficionados, the movie can be summed up with the following quotes:

“We got company....”

“You wouldn’t mind giving me a hand, would ya? ...........you seem to have a lotta women stashed round this country, Major!”

“Zat ees eenteresting, Fraulein, but I sought ze cadeetral voss on ze uzzer side off ze square......”

"It's perfectly simple, General, I've just uncovered a plot to assassinate the Fuhrer...."

“EFFERBODY REMAIN AS HE IZ – UNTIL I FIND OUT WVOT EXACTLY IS GOING ON HEERE!”

“Tell him he’s a traitor! -- “Tell HIM he’s a renegade!” -- “Ja, ja - that is Schmidt, no question!!!”

“We got company....”

“Next time you have one of these things, keep it an all-British operation!”

……..and as for this book, it’s more of a point-by-point literal translation of the movie…………..
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A. Devlin
5.0 out of 5 stars Film review encapsulates Post WW2 western culture through a single Hollywood blockbuster film.
Reviewed in the United States on September 4, 2020
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Basically 100 page film review of the classic, and ridiculous , movie "Where Eagles Dare". Dyer skillfully incorporates film references and cultural tropes from latter part of the 20th century to provide an excellent entertainment for the one hour it takes to read. . The movie may be a contrived mess, but it does give us what we wanted and expected from our WW2 adventures.
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Top reviews from other countries

Squeaky Joe
5.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining and insightful
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 23, 2024
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Writer and critic Geoff Dyer serves up a scene-by-scene analysis of the classic war movie, ‘Where Eagles Dare’ highlighting his favourite scenes as well as commenting on some of the actors’ proclivities – such as Richard Burton’s drinking, and Clint Eastwood’s stock-in-trade expressions.

‘Where Eagles Dare’ is one of my all-time favourite movies and has been since I first saw it as a teenager. It’s fair to say that parts of the film went over my head (such as the whole thing about the notebooks), but having now watched it a trillion times, I didn’t think there was much left that I didn’t know. However, Geoff Dyer’s approach is to lay out the movie scene-by-scene, dropping in details like how Richard Burton managed to effortlessly scale the castle walls as if mountaineering was something he did every day. Dyer manages to throw in dozens of literary and filmic links to the movie, as well as pointing out plot holes and various activities that make no sense in terms of the story.

Like Mr Dyer, I too read loads of Desmond Bagley books but for some reason I never got around to Alistair MacLean (on whose book the movie was based). In the final section of ‘Broadsword Calling Danny Boy’ Dyer explains his reasons behind writing the book and also reveals that he now finds MacLean’s thrillers unreadable. Looking them up on Amazon, I have to agree and am glad I didn’t waste my time on them.

Despite its shortcomings, ‘Where Eagles Dare’ is still a great film and reading this little book was as entertaining and insightful as watching the film with Burton and Eastwood by my side.
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ron thomas
4.0 out of 5 stars Hollywood Action pics disembowelled
Reviewed in Australia on September 28, 2020
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Very funny romp about a film I would never see
Our era looking at the past with a 'Huh' and some nice autobiography
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Dr Dombo
4.0 out of 5 stars We have company
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 15, 2018
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I was 12 when my grandfather died and I "inherited" his Dutch translation of the novelisation of the movie "Where Eagles Dare". I don't remember if I ever read the book (I think I mostly liked the cool cover of it) but I've watched the movies dozens of times. If you have too, you are probably male (*), and possibly in your 40s or 50s, and this book is for you. An almost blow-by-blow account of the action with witty asides and associations.

(*) This is based on the ratings for this movie on IMDb.com which show that almost twenty times as many males as females have rated it. Their average ratings are very similar, though: 7.7 for the males and 7.5 for the females. Even the always critical Top 1000 voters have given it an average rating of 7.3 (and more than half of those 1000 voters have rated it).

One noticeable piece of trivia related to this movie, which I read on IMDB.com but which probably happened after this book had gone into print concerns the German Junkers plane that was used in the movie: "The JU 52 aircraft HB-HOT used in the film crashed in the Swiss Alps and was written off on 4 August, 2018. Tragically, all 20 persons on board were killed in the accident."
8 people found this helpful
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schlockhorror
5.0 out of 5 stars Very funny
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 1, 2023
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The writer clearly loves the film while also being aware of its flaws and the quite lazy performances of its leads...must rewatch...
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Mr. C Coulson
3.0 out of 5 stars A Bit Like Gogglebox but not as funny
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 23, 2018
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Where Eagles Dare was one of those films from my childhood that everyone watched and discussed at school, so hearing about this book via a gushing review in the Telegraph encouraged me to buy it as a Kindle ebook plus audio commentary. What I wasn't prepared for was that the book wasn't much longer than the review and could be read or listened to in less time than the film runs.

Basically what you get is a blow by blow account of the film as it pans out, with some not terribly funny asides from Dyer. Once he gets a 'funny' theme under his belt he sticks to it doggedly: Burton liked a drink; Eastwood doesn't say much; they did it for the money; Schmeisser Sub Machine Gun and rucksacks. Throw in a few swear words and some 'blokey' references and that's it. In a book of so few pages these riffs crop up all too many times. It's a bit like an episode of Goggle box but not as funny.

The book pretty much ends with the end of the film. The remainder of the book is why Dyer wrote it and a list of the books he read as a child/teen. It would have been nice to spare us those tiresome reminiscences and instead add a few tidbits about the movie. I'm sure Wikipedia or Imdb would have been able to assist with his research.

Where Eagles Dare is no great art - it's just a bit escapist fun, full of plot holes and eye-rolling plot twists but it deserves better than this. I wasn't expecting one of those learned BFI books about the film and but I was expecting a bit more than the equivalent of watching the movie with someone who insists on talking all the way through it and making fun of it when we already know it's silly.
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