The Eiger Sanction

The Eiger Sanction is a 1975 American action film directed by and starring Clint Eastwood. Based on the 1972 novel The Eiger Sanction by Trevanian, the film is about Jonathan Hemlock, an art history professor, mountain climber, and former assassin once employed by a secret government agency, who is blackmailed into returning to his deadly profession for one last mission. He agrees to join an international climbing team in Switzerland planning an ascent of the Eiger north face to avenge the murder of an old friend. The Eiger Sanction was produced by Robert Daley for Eastwood's Malpaso Company, with Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown as executive producers, and co-starred George Kennedy, Vonetta McGee, and Jack Cassidy. Principal photography started on August 12, 1974, and ended in late September 1974. The picture was filmed on location on the Eiger mountain and Zurich in Switzerland, in Monument Valley and Zion National Park in the American Southwest, and in Carmel-by-the-Sea and Monterey in California. Special equipment and handheld cameras were employed to film the climbing sequences. Eastwood did his own climbing and stuntwork under dangerous conditions. Twenty-six-year-old British climber David Knowles died on the Eiger during the production. The film score was composed by John Williams. The Eiger Sanction was released in New York City on May 21, 1975, and received mixed reviews. The general reaction among many reviewers offered criticism of the story and screenplay, and praise for the climbing footage and action sequences. The film, which was made with a budget of $9 million, earned $14.2 million at the box office. The Eiger Sanction was first released on DVD in 1998 and on Blu-ray in 2015 by Universal Studios. Plot Art professor and mountaineer Jonathan Hemlock is a retired government assassin called on to return to work for two more "sanctions", a euphemism for officially approved killings. During his career with a secret government agency called "C2", Hemlock amassed a private collection of 21 rare masterpiece paintings, paid for from his previous sanctions. The director of C2, Dragon, is an albino ex-Nazi confined to semi-darkness and kept alive by blood transfusions. Dragon wants Hemlock to kill two men responsible for the death of another government agent, code name Wormwood. Insisting he is retired, Hemlock refuses until Dragon threatens to expose Hemlock's art collection to the Internal Revenue Service.