On behalf of the dragon

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Movie
German title On behalf of the dragon
Original title The Eiger Sanction
On behalf of the dragon.svg
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1975
length 123 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Clint Eastwood
script Hal Dresner
Warren Murphy
Rod Whitaker
production Robert Daley
music John Williams
camera William N. Clark
Frank Stanley
cut Ferris Webster
occupation

On behalf of the dragon ( The Eiger Sanction ) is an American action thriller written by and with Clint Eastwood . The plot is based on a novel by Rod Whitaker , known by his stage name Trevanian . The film opened in German cinemas on August 22, 1975.

action

The art lecturer Dr. Jonathan Hemlock is employed at a provincial college. He has a remarkable collection of old and valuable paintings. Hemlock used to work for a secret government organization called C2, for which he carried out what was termed sanctioned assassinations. However, he left the business.

Clint Eastwood while filming in Zurich in 1974

His former supervisor, code-named "Dragon" - an old Nazi and albino with a light allergy - again instructs him to eliminate two men who have killed a secret agent. Drache sends the pushy and intolerable henchman Pope , whom Hemlock deeply detests, as a messenger . At first Hemlock refuses, but finally accepts the order after the dragon threatens to give the tax authorities a tip about the origin of the money for the paintings.

He quickly tracks down the first man and murders both him and his bodyguard. So that he can track down the second man, the dragon hires the agent Jemima Brown on him, who seduces him and takes the 20,000 dollars for the first job from him. When he learns from the dragon that the secret agent who was killed by the two men was an old friend, he agrees to find the second man on an expedition to the Eiger . In addition, after completing the contract, he will receive $ 100,000 and a clearance certificate from the tax office.

To prepare, Hemlock, who has already failed twice on the grueling north face of the Eiger , practices mountaineering with the support of his friend Ben Bowman in the mountains of Arizona . Bowman runs a hotel and a school for mountaineers there. Hemlock is trained there by the silent Indian George . Miles Mellough, an old friend of Hemlock's, turns up soon after and wants to propose a deal to him. He reveals the second man's name to him and Hemlock is supposed to let him live for it (Mellough had betrayed him earlier). Hemlock doesn't go into trading.

George appears in Hemlock's bedroom and seduces him. Then she attacks him and tries to numb him with a syringe. Hemlock believes she operated on Miles Mellough's behalf. Once he was anesthetized, Mellough would probably have injected him with a drug overdose. Bowman keeps him from that. Hemlock meets Mellough and his bodyguard in the desert, he shoots the bodyguard after a car chase in self-defense. Mellough is abandoned by Hemlock in the middle of the desert with no water or transport and, as expected, dies of thirst.

Finally the expedition takes place, the Eiger north face is to be climbed. However, group C2 of the secret organization has not yet found out which member of the expedition is the wanted man. This is what Hemlock is supposed to do during the climb. Besides Hemlock, the participants are the German Karl Freytag, the Austrian Anderl Meyer and the French Jean-Paul Montaigne with his wife Anna, who, however, does not climb. Bowman follows the action from his hotel on Kleine Scheidegg via a telescope . Hemlock initially distrusts all participants, who are all different in character. One of the participants has an affair with Montaigne's wife, which makes the whole thing even more explosive.

Montaigne suffers a concussion as a result of falling rocks and dies in the bivouac the following cold night . The group then breaks off the ascent and wants to abseil down to the tunnel where rescuers can rescue them. Due to the onset of the foehn , Freytag and Meyer also have an accident, only Hemlock can be rescued by the rescuers whom his friend Bowman led into the tunnel. He notices that Bowman is limping - as the wanted second man should do.

On the return journey by train, Bowman admits that he is the wanted man and that he shares responsibility for the murder of Hemlock's friend. Hemlock learns that George is Bowman's daughter and that Bowman was in dire straits because George was a drug addict and needed help. Hemlock decides not to harm Bowman.

When the dragon finally calls him and congratulates him on his (alleged) elimination of even all expedition members, he withholds Bowman's participation in the agent's murder. He then successfully courted Jemima Brown.

Reviews

Roger Ebert criticized in the Chicago Sun-Times that the film relies more on spectacular effects than on the story to be told. The plot is "incredibly confusing". Eastwood cannot be doubled in the mountaineering scenes, which makes these scenes more realistic and impressive.

The lexicon of international films wrote that the film was "boring" and that it followed the "James Bond pattern". He only offers "some sensational effects" and the "usual clichés".

The Rotten Tomatoes website evaluated 14 reviews and gave the film a positive rate of 71 percent.

background

In one of the most notable scenes in the movie, Hemlock and Bowman climb Totem Pole in Arizona.

A number of accidents occurred during the shoot. The 27-year-old climber David Knowles died in the mountains. The cameraman Stanley made serious accusations at Eastwood. He would have prepared the shooting sloppily and put considerable pressure on everyone involved. Stanley was never hired again by Eastwood or Malpaso Productions. Several other accidents were kept secret from the public.

Locations

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for On behalf of the dragon . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , April 2010 (PDF; test number: 47 584 V).
  2. ^ Review by Roger Ebert
  3. ↑ On behalf of the dragon. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  4. ^ The Eiger Sanction (1975). Rotten Tomatoes , accessed April 20, 2018 .
  5. ↑ McGilligan, Patrick (1999). Clint: The Life and Legend. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-00-255528-9 ./page 250
  6. ↑ Filming locations for The Eiger Sanction