On the eagle's trail

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Movie
German title On the eagle's trail
Original title Sky Riders
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1976
length 91 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Douglas Hickox
script Greg MacGillivray
production Terry Morse Jr.
music Lalo Schifrin
camera Jim Freeman ,
Greg MacGillivray ,
Ousama Rawi
cut Malcolm Cooke
occupation

On the track of the eagle (original title: Sky Riders ) is an American action film from 1976 with James Coburn .

action

Ellen, the wife of the millionaire Jonas Bracken, and her two children are forcibly kidnapped, and all of the domestic workers are shot. The kidnappers contact Bracken with a radio and demand a large ransom, the police are involved from the start. The first time they make contact by radio, the police try to locate the terrorists; the trail leads them to a delivery truck. When he is surrounded and nobody comes out, the inspector's nephew opens the door and the car explodes.

Jim McCabe, Ellen's ex-husband and the father of the older child, learns of the kidnapping and searches on his own. When the kidnappers, who are pursuing terrorist goals, demand that Bracken get weapons from the money and send photo negatives of the hostages, Bracken and McCabe immediately make prints. McCabe finds out through an expert that an image visible in the background in the photo is to be found in a monastery situated on a mountain, to which only a single road leads. Thereupon McCabe, who is involved in criminal machinations, comes up with the idea to try it over the air. He meets professional hang-gliders who want to help him for a fee. In order not to be seen, she and McCabe fly at night with their kites to the rock on which the monastery stands. They free the hostages at daybreak. While trying to escape, they are discovered and there is a shooting. A hang-glider dies in a hail of bullets.

Meanwhile, through another conversation between the kidnappers and Bracken, the police became aware of the pictures sent and also found out the location of the hiding place. They advance immediately and arrive as the shooting begins. The terrorist leader finally tries to escape in a helicopter, McCabe is able to hold on to it. Finally he has to make an emergency landing, and the leader shoots himself when the police helicopter arrives.

Reviews

“A long, boring crash,” said the New York Times on March 27, 1976. “The dialogues and the motifs look like they are made of cardboard.” The representations are leaden. The verdict of the Lexicon of International Films was also negative: "Staged entirely according to cliché, only moderately exciting and with a questionable ideological tendency."

Remarks

  • The film was shot in Greece . A Greek craftsman died in an accident while filming, and two members of the film crew were arrested.
  • One of the filming locations, Meteora Monastery , also served as the backdrop in James Bond 007 - On A Fatal Mission .
  • The escape by helicopter can be seen briefly in the opening credits of the series Ein Colt just in case .
  • The scene in which the leader, embodied by Werner Pochath, takes his own life has been cut.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ On the eagle's trail. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed October 25, 2019 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  2. ↑ See Sky Riders . In: Variety , 1975.