'Broadsword Calling Danny Boy'

December 1, 2018
A literary heavyweight escorts us through Where Eagles Dare, the 1968 film that somehow managed to catch him by the necktie and not let go--for decades.In his latest book, Dyer (Writer-in-Residence/Univ. of Southern California; The Street Philosophy of Garry Winogrand, 2018, etc.), who has won the Somerset Maugham Prize and the Windham-Campbell Literary Prize, among many others, wastes little time getting down to business. He chronicles the principal players in the film, Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood, reminding us of the former's problems with alcohol and Elizabeth Taylor and of the latter's Dirty Harry films and his limitations as an actor: "Squinting is pretty much the limit of Eastwood's facial range." Although the author is a bit puzzled by his fondness for a World War II action flick, he confesses he watches it whenever it appears on TV, and he has clearly memorized the plot and much of the dialogue. Along for the tour is William Shakespeare. Dyer reminds us early on that the film's title is from Richard III; he offers allusions to Hamlet and Othello, and the final line of the book (before a backmatter note) echoes Prospero in The Tempest. Other notables pop up throughout the fluid narrative, from Charles Bronson to Ken Kesey. Dyer also displays his sense of humor, telling us that Lady Macbeth cleans her bloody knife "before she goes all PTSD." Speaking of knives, the author also reveals the quickest way to dispatch someone with a blade. Ever the sharp-eyed observer, he also points out a number of anachronisms that escaped the filmmakers. Finally, he endeavors to place the final portion of the film (when the successful heroes flee the Nazi castle) in the tradition of other getaway films.An erudite and amusing love song to a loved one the writer knows is not all that deserving.

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January 1, 2019
Dyer is that rare breed of creative nonfiction writer who can take almost any topic (jazz, yoga, D. H. Lawrence) and make it his own. Here it's movies, or, rather, one particular movie, Where Eagles Dare, a 1968 WWII film starring Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood. It is one of Dyer's favorites, a movie he's seen countless times. This insightful, funny, and wildly enthusiastic book is essentially the literary version of live-tweeting a film: Dyer takes us through the movie almost scene by scene, providing a running commentary not just on the action, but also on how the movie interacts with the viewer, noting oddities along the way, like whether the names of two characters, Harrod and Carnaby, just happen to be the names of one of London's most famous stores and one of its most fashionable streets, or whether they are "code for some kind of psycho-retail geography of the city. If you've never seen Where Eagles Dare, there's still plenty to enjoy here, thanks to Dyer's irrepressible style; but if you're a fan of the film, you can't ask for a more entertaining companion book.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)

September 15, 2018

A critic/essayist/novelist of wide purview and rampant originality, the multi-award-winning Dyer (White Sands) offers a scene-by-scene analysis of Where Eagles Dare, an Alpine-set World War II story both heroic and kitschy that he's loved since childhood. In time for the film's 50th anniversary.

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