Considering the breadth of his career, Clint Eastwood was bound to put his stamp on the espionage thriller, and when Rod Whitaker, aka Trevanian, published The Eiger Sanction in 1972, he saw his chance. Though Paul Newman was originally attached to the property, Eastwood stepped in after he left over concerns about the material. If the end result hardly lacks for spills and thrills, it's possible the regressive politics scared Newman away.
To his students, Eastwood's Indian Jones-like Dr. John Hemlock is a charismatic art history professor—so charismatic that a comely student offers to sleep with him to boost her grades. Though he turns her down, he thinks nothing of patting her derriere before sending her on her way. Little does she know he's a retired counter-assassin who funneled his earnings into a black market art collection. When a former associate recruits him in exchange for a Pissarro, he can't resist the opportunity to "sanction" the man responsible for murdering his Korean War buddy, Henry Baq (like Hemlock, Eastwood served in Korea).
He reports to C2 director Dragon (Thayer David, Rocky), an albino ex-Nazi shrouded in crimson darkness, who instructs him to join a Swiss climbing expedition that includes his target. Hemlock will just have to figure out which man did the deed: Freytag (Reiner Schöne), Meyer (Michael Grimm), or Montaigne (Jean-Pierre Bernard). First, he reconnects with his avuncular pal, Ben Bowman (George Kennedy, Cool Hand Luke), who runs a resort in Monument Valley. Ben pairs him with silent Native American trainer George (Brenda Venus) who puts him through his paces. He insults her ancestry every chance he gets--"I wish Custer would've won!"--but that doesn't stop her from tumbling into his bed. He also seduces Black stewardess Jemima Brown (Vonetta McGee, To Sleep with Anger). To Jemima's credit, she readily acknowledges the ridiculousness of her name.
Though it's laudable that Eastwood cast a woman of color as his leading lady, Hemlock lets his associates' racist comments about her go unchallenged. In Arizona, he crosses paths with another Korean War vet, Miles Mellough (Jack Cassidy), a gay-coded character with a musclebound bodyguard and a Pomeranian named Faggot. Hemlock makes sure both men suffer spectacularly. If he has no tolerance for political correctness, he excels at rock climbing, and the Eiger sequences eschew special effects for authentic location work that predicts the vertiginous ascent in Oscar-winning climbing documentary Free Solo (tragically, crew member David Knowles, a Swiss mountaineer, perished during the shoot due to falling debris). Hemlock barely makes it down from the mountain alive, only to find that Dragon didn't tell him the whole truth about his assignment, but he still gets to ride off into the sunset with Jem. If the dated humor falls flat and the source novel's satire goes missing, Eastwood makes for a convincing climber, and his easygoing rapport with McGee and Kennedy proves enjoyable. In his commentary track, film critic Nick Pinkerton explores the movie's strengths and weaknesses before concluding, "It’s a goddamn hoot." A strong optional selection.