Week three of the vault’s In Memorium series focuses on the work of producer Richard D. Zanuck who passed away two months ago. Zanuck is responsible for such classics as Jaws and Driving Miss Daisy. His more recent memorable films include Road to Perdition, Big Fish, and Sweeney Todd. His career featured many movies to choose from, but when I saw he was executive producer on one of the few Clint Eastwood films I’d never seen, I had the perfect selection.
Dr. Jonathan Hemlock (Clint Eastwood) is a man of many talents; art professor, collector of black market masterpieces, accomplished mountaineer, and retired assassin. Hemlock is content lecturing to lascivious young coeds, but his old employer C2, a secret government agency headed by Mr. Dragon (Thayer David), insists he return for two more sanctions, or hits. Dragon convinces Hemlock to return by first leveraging his illegal art collection then by playing on his sympathies for a fellow assassin and close friend. For his second hit, the “Eiger Sanction,” Hemlock must train with his old buddy Ben Bowman (George Kennedy). Bowman is also the ground man for the impending north face Eiger climb. Replacing the team’s American climber, Hemlock joins three other mountaineers, Freytag (Reiner Schöne), Meyer (Michael Grimm), and Montaigne (Jean-Pierre Bernard), any one of which could be the killer he seeks.
No comments:
Post a Comment