The Eagle Has Landed Trivia Quiz

Answer: A German agent lived in a nearby village.

Admiral Canaris (Anthony Quayle) had been in a meeting of Hitler's senior staff when the idea of kidnapping Churchill had been broached: "That meeting, you should have seen it, Radl. There was Hitler, first ranting, then cajoling, then perfectly rational... then raging and stamping like a - like the ringmaster of some freak circus! Goebbels, hopping from one foot to another like a - like a schoolboy. Bormann... hmph - a vulture, perched in the corner, watching, listening, never speaking. And Mussolini - Mussolini! - an automaton, Radl! And I looked round that room, and I wondered: am I the only one who can see it?" Canaris believed that Hitler would soon forget the idea but that Heinrich Himmler wouldn't, so he wanted Colonel Radl to do a due-diligence analysis of the plot. Canaris believed it was a waste of time, but he wanted it to look as though he took it seriously. Radl had the same attitude at first, but when the pieces fell into place, he realized the plan was possible.

The Germans had an agent, Joanna Grey (Jean Marsh), who lived in a nearby village and who was trusted by the villagers; she would be a point of contact for the force sent to kidnap Hitler. According to her comments in the film, Grey worked for the Germans because she was an admirer of Hitler, but in the original version of the film, Grey's motivation was that she was an Afrikaner whose parents had died in a British prison camp (that scene was cut from the U.S. release).

Answer: Himmler

Heinrich Himmler (Donald Pleasence) had Radl brought to his office where he presented Radl with the letter which read: "Herr Oberst Radl is acting under my direct and personal orders in a matter of the utmost importance to the Reich. All personnel, military and civil, without distinction of rank, will assist him in any way that Oberst Radl sees fit to demand... Adolf Hitler." Himmler stated that Radl could use the letter to get whatever support he needed for the mission: "Under the terms of that document, even I find myself under your personal command!" But he also told Radl that the mission was secret and that he shouldn't even let Admiral Canaris know about it.

Answer: Tried to save a Jewish girl

While returning from the eastern front, Steiner and his men had stepped off their train to stretch their legs at a train depot where SS officers were loading Jewish citizens into cattle cars. SS troopers ordered Steiner and the men to get back on their train, but not being a fan of the SS, Steiner instead wanted to know who the prisoners were, and he then helped a Jewish girl who was trying to escape.

He put her on a flatbed train that was pulling out of the station, but she was quickly shot by an SS trooper.

A confrontation then ensued between the SS officers and Steiner and his men, and the latter were court-martialed and sent to the island where they were sent out on dangerous missions to torpedo allied shipping traffic. Radl offered to get Steiner and his men reinstated if they participated in the plot to kidnap Churchill.

Answer: He could subdue a dog with a whistle.

Devlin was an IRA operative, which explained why he was helping the Germans against the British, although his true motivation was money - as Colonel Radl had pointed out, he had been "expensive to buy in the first place". Devlin first performed his whistling trick at the airfield where he was departing for his parachuting trip to Britain.

He quieted a guard dog with his high-pitched whistle, and the dog laid down as he lowered the pitch of the whistle. Devlin said that it was a trick he'd learned from an uncle in Belfast, and Colonel Steiner responded, "In the Middle Ages, they'd have burned you for that!" Later in the film, when Allied soldiers sent two dogs into Devlin's house to capture him, he used the same trick to escape with the dogs. Casting the role of Liam Devlin was a bit of a challenge. Michael Caine was originally approached for the role, but he didn't want to play an IRA operative (this was during the 1970s when the IRA was very active).

He preferred the role of Steiner, who was a German officer but not a Nazi.

Then Richard Harris was tapped for the role of Devlin, but he had made some pro-IRA comments, so the producers of the film decided to look elsewhere and settled on Sutherland.

Answer: As Polish paratroopers

One of the funnier lines in the film occurred at the airport. When Devlin asked the pilot how he was supposed to jump out of the plane, the pilot responded, "Release your safety belt. I turn the aircraft upside down, you drop out." When Steiner asked Devlin why he was wearing his civilian clothes for the operation, Devlin explained: "It might look a bit silly going down Mr. Steiner, but I'll be hell of a lot safer when I land on the ground.

There's an old poem I know, which freely translated from the Irish says: I realized fear one morning, when the blare of the fox-hunters sound.

When they're all chasing after the poor bloody fox, it's safer to be dressed like a hound." Joanna Grey, the German operative in the village, had arranged for Devlin to be the new marsh warden, so Devlin had dressed in attire appropriate for a country game warden.

As for Steiner and his men, they were disguised as Polish paratroopers who were conducting exercises around the village, but Steiner was insistent that they would be wearing their German uniforms underneath their Polish gear; if they were captured, they would be captured soldiers, not spies.

Answer: Shot a man who discovered that he was working with the enemy

When they first met, Molly chatted with Devlin outside of the pub, which irritated her would-be suitor, Arthur Seymour, who then told Devlin to stay away from her. When Seymour found Devlin talking with Molly in the church graveyard, he picked a fight which he quickly lost.

When the priest came upon them, Devlin told him, "It's alright Father, I'm just telling him about the holy trinity: Footwork, timing, and hitting". After his humiliation, Seymour decided to check up on Devlin. When Molly arrived at Devlin's cottage, she found Seymour there.

He told her that Devlin had a German pistol and two army trucks in his shed without numbers on them. Molly tried to stop him from going to the authorities, but he slapped her and pushed her to the ground.

She then grabbed Devlin's rifle and shot Seymour as he was leaving. When Devlin returned to his cottage with the Germans, they found Seymour dead on the floor. The Germans buried the body, and when Devlin later met up with Molly, he told her not to worry - if the body was discovered, he'd be blamed, not her.

Answer: Water wheel

In order to maintain their disguise as Polish troops on an exercise, the Germans were going through the motions of conducting exercises in the village. A village girl was sitting on a fence by a water wheel watching the exercises, and she slipped and fell into the rushing water. One of the Germans jumped in and rescued her, but he was then pulled into the water wheel.

When the wheel was stopped, his German uniform was showing underneath his Polish costume. The villagers realized that the men weren't Polish, with an elderly man mumbling, "more bloody foreigners!", and the Germans quickly pulled their weapons on the villagers and forced them into the church.

Incidentally, the water wheel belongs to the historic Mapledurham Watermill in Oxfordshire.

Besides appearing in this film, it was also featured on the back cover of the eponymous Black Sabbath debut album in 1970.

Answer: Joanna Grey (Jean Marsh)

Pamela, the vicar's sister, and Molly had been in the church when the Germans came in with the villagers, and the two managed to escape unseen through a secret tunnel. Pamela went to Joanna Grey's house to get Joanna's car so that she could drive to the location where the allied troops were stationed nearby. Pamela informed Joanna that the Germans were there to kidnap Churchill (which was actually an error in the film; while they were hidden in the church, Molly and Pamela heard the vicar say to Steiner that the Germans were going to assassinate Churchill, and Steiner didn't make any comment to the contrary, so Pamela couldn't have known about the true plot). Joanna shot her, but Pamela managed to escape and reach the troops. Colonel Pitts was a buffoon who was bitter about being left out of the action, so when he got the news about the Germans, he grabbed some troops and headed for the village. Pitts' assault on the church failed, and when he tried to attack Grey in her home, she shot him as he was coming up her stairs. Grey was then killed by a soldier accompanying Pitts.

Answer: He was executed for treason.

After Steiner's team had successfully parachuted into England, Colonel Radl had returned to see Himmler with the news that "the eagle has landed". Himmler then asked Radl to return Hitler's letter, which Himmler promptly tore up, making it apparent that the operation was Himmler's, not Hitler's. So when Radl received the radio message that the mission had failed, he knew he was going to take the fall for the operation.

He sent Karl, his second-in-command, back to Germany with instructions to claim that he had been misled by Radl and was merely following orders. Shortly after that, Radl was executed by a firing squad on the basis of having "exceeded his orders to the point of treason to the state".

Answer: Killed Churchill

Captain Clark (Treat Williams), Colonel Pitts' much more competent second-in-command, went to speak with Steiner at the church, and he convinced Steiner to release the villagers, but he wasn't able to convince Steiner to surrender. Meanwhile Devlin had entered the church through the tunnel, showing Steiner a way out and leading him to believe that their mission was still possible.

However his troops decided that the best chance for success was to have Steiner go on his own, with the troops fighting from the church: "Shall we say covering fire in about thirty seconds, Herr Oberst?" Steiner drove off in the priest's car and later exchanged it for an army jeep after knocking out the jeep's driver. With the jeep, he was able to gain access to the estate where Churchill was staying. Apparently realizing that kidnapping Churchill was out of the question at this point, he settled for shooting him.

When Churchill stepped out onto the terrace, brandy in hand and smoking a cigar, Steiner stepped out of the shadows and shot him. Steiner was then shot by a British officer who said, "Poor sod. No one will ever know what he did". Clark wanted to know how that was possible if he just shot Churchill, but it turned out that it wasn't Churchill at all: "That is one George Fowler lying there.

He's a variety artist of a sort and a very brave man. Incredible - he knew this sort of thing could happen. He didn't even call out. Played it straight through to the end". Churchill was actually meeting with Roosevelt and Stalin at the time: "Teheran, Captain. That's were the reality is. This, this never happened".