The Eiger Sanction

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climbrunride

Ice climber

Purgatory, CO

Topic Author's Original Post - Jul 23, 2011 - 08:40pm PT

So I'm just laying around the house having a lazy rest day and I see one of my favorite movies is on: The Eiger Sanction. If I'm not actually out climbing, I might as well be watching a great movie (that's kind of) about it.

Plus, it is the source of some great quotes:

Woman Journalist: Tell me, Mr. Bowman, in your opinion do these men climb to prove their manhood, or is it more a matter of compensating for inferiority feelings?
Ben Bowman: Lady, why don't you go get yourself screwed. It would do you a lot of good.

[Hemlock saves Meier from falling off the mountain]
Anderl Meier: You're very good. I have really enjoyed climbing with you.
Dr. Jonathan Hemlock: We'll make it.
Anderl Meier: I don't think so. But we shall continue with style.

And my favorite:

Ben Bowman: Wanna Beer?
Jonathan Hemlock: You gonna call room service?
Ben Bowman: We got beer.
Jonathan Hemlock: If you hauled beer up this rock you're insane!
Ben Bowman: I may be insane, but I'm not stupid. I didn't carry it, You did! It's in your pack.
Jonathan Hemlock: Christ, I outha throw you off this pillar! Besides, It's warm.
Ben Bowman: Sorry, just knew you'd draw the line at haulin' ice.

Acer

Big Wall climber

Jul 24, 2011 - 12:50am PT

I watch The Eiger Sanction all the time. Classic.

From the movie notes somewhere, George Kennedy got a helo ride to the top of the Totem Pole but Clint actually jugged the lines. Clint Eastwood did all of his own stunts for the flick.

Anyone want to sound off on climbing the Totem Pole?

Mark Powell, Jerry Gallwas, Don Wilson, Bill Feuerer (1957)
#5 Eric Bjørnstad
#6 Banditos
Todd Gordon & Dave Evans
Charlie Fowler & Alison Sheets 80s
Jim Bridwell
Charlie Fowler & Will Gadd and Kim Csyzmazia(2004)
John Middendorf
Acer

R.B.

Trad climber

47N 122W

Jul 24, 2011 - 12:53am PT

A Mike Hoover production, and a classic.

(Mike Hoover - "Solo" 1973?) anyone with any history?

rockermike

Trad climber

Berkeley

Jul 24, 2011 - 01:09am PT

The REAL Eiger Sanction thread....

http://www.supertopo.com/climbers-forum/565233/Eiger-Sanction

jstan

climber

Jul 24, 2011 - 01:13am PT

Talking about knowing the lines in movies – take a look at this.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-black-version-20110723,0,6273154.story

'The Black Version' of movies plays out at Groundlings Theatre
Imagine 'Grease' set in Compton and played for laughs. That and other films get an improv twist in the popular show.

The Black Version

By Jason Kehe, Special to the Los Angeles Times
July 23, 2011

All it takes to sell "The Black Version," the consistently overbooked comedy show now running at the Groundlings Theatre, is to state the concept: Audience members shout out titles of iconic movies, the director picks her favorite, and a cast of veteran black comics improvises, with scant regard for political correctness, the "black version" of it.

People start laughing in anticipation alone — "like we're winning before we even started," says cast member Keegan-Michael Key.

Consider their most recent show, a parody of "Grease." Don't expect the adolescent crooning and swooning of Danny and Sandy as they negotiate the all-American halls of Rydell High.

In the much cruder "black version," retitled "Sulfur-8" after a hair care product, Darrell and Shantell are Compton High students who share a meal of fried chicken and biscuits at a Popeyes and, over the course of their fraught courtship, encounter trigger-happy gang members, evil baby mommas and gun-toting golf caddies. All this while singing their own versions of the well-known songs. The title number becomes an R&B ode to Sulfur-8 — "only one thing make your hair taste so great," one cast member improvises, remarkably in tune as part of a respectable four-part harmony.

From the first show a year ago, "The Black Version" has been a winner for the Groundlings Theatre, drawing crowds creator Jordan Black says he never encountered during his seven years at the company (he left in 2007).

Part of the reason for its success might be the novelty of seeing seven black improvisers on the stage at one time. There isn't as much improv talent in the black comedy world, Black says, because most of the role models are stand-up comics like Eddie Murphy and Chris Rock.

Wayne Brady, who appeared on the old improv TV show "Whose Line Is it Anyway?," has been a special guest on two of the last 15 or so performances of "The Black Version," including "Grease."

"It's been one of my favorite live improv shows that I've been involved in a long time," Brady says, and he plans to do more.

The brainchild of Black — a running joke is that the show was named after him — the show began in 2007 as a series of Web shorts. Back then, Black and his friends, many of whom are now part of the show's regular cast, including Gary Anthony Williams ("Boston Legal"), Daniele Gaither ("Mad TV") and Phil LaMarr ("The Pee Wee Herman Show"), only parodied specific scenes, such as Meg Ryan's famous fake orgasm in "When Harry Met Sally."

When the opportunity presented itself, Black and director Karen Maruyama brought the show to the Groundlings, where it's been playing two or three times a month for the last year. Past movies have included "Back to Future," inevitably retitled "Black to the Future," and "Silence of the Lambs," better known as "Why You Eating People?" — and others such as "Star Wars," "Forrest Gump," "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory," "Top Gun" and "E.T.," their first.

Once a movie is chosen, there's no time for brainstorming — Maruyama summons the comics to the stage, sets the scene, sometimes asks the audience for a suggestion or two, and then they begin.

To some, "The Black Version" might seem an endorsement of stereotypes — the ghetto-talking pimp, for instance — but Black sees it as, in some sense, freeing.

"There's no room for political correctness in art," he says. "These things exist, people talk about these things, but they talk about them behind closed doors. What we're doing is bringing them all out into the open, which is, I think, a big part of why the show is successful. It gives people a chance to relax about race for a second, because we don't talk about race, particularly in Los Angeles."

Black, who also teaches at Groundlings, has noticed that some of his black students "get onstage and don't want to be black." The fear, he says, might be rooted in a notion that playing to stereotypes unfairly represents black people.

"Instantly, you have people in the audience going, 'That's not us.' No, that's not you, but there are some people who behave that way and act that way, and that's the truth. It's OK to comment on that," Black says. "Not every white person acts like Jim Carrey, but he doesn't have to worry about representing his whole race. I refuse to worry about that."

Black and his cast take particular joy in luring audiences into certain racially familiar situations and then, in a flash, flipping them on their head, especially in the more open-ended second half of the show, in which the cast presents the would-be DVD extras of the black version they've just improvised, featuring Shakespeare, Stevie Wonder and Oprah Winfrey, among others.

Maruyama, the cast's Japanese American director who the cast has declared an "honorary" black, agrees that "The Black Version's" kind of comedy gives ethnic comics a certain freedom denied them in more traditional venues. She knows where to draw the line — sometimes an audience suggestion will border on racism — but she's normally too busy having fun to worry about offending people. A comic herself — like Black, she got her start at Groundlings, and also worked alongside Brady as a featured guest on "Whose Line?" — Maruyama has an ear for the funniest crowd suggestions. Don't shout out "Weekend at Bernie's" or "Kindergarten Cop," or you will be publicly shamed.

Everybody in the cast emphasizes the fun of putting on the show, saying that improvisation, though it might sound difficult, is no real work for trained professionals. Williams mourned the day he had to miss a performance for another job; Key calls it "one of the joys of my life."

Black is hoping to take "The Black Version" on tour, possibly to Las Vegas or New York, but is only "in talks" at the moment.

Williams has taken on the role of de facto publicist, and he has a marketing approach to new audiences. "If all of Los Angeles does not see this show," he says, "I will declare the entire place racist."

calendar@latimes.com
Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times

Concerned citizen

Big Wall climber

Jul 24, 2011 - 10:46am PT

I agree with the comments citing the merits of the climbing footage.

Many years ago Eastwood was interviewed in the New York Times (or perhaps The New Yorker) regarding his great success as a film-maker, delivering so many movies within a reasonable budget. He commented on the self-discipline required of a director, because most of the big busts were movies that lost the attention of the audience by going on too long. This typically reflected self-indulgence by the director, dwelling on scenes or themes that were dear to him (I don't think any women directors were guilty, probably because producers and studios never gave them that chance in the first place!) but that did not connect with the viewer.

He offered as an example the scene where he had to cut the rope in order to swing into reach for rescue on the Eiger, based on the 1936 death of Toni Kurz. He spoke of how terrifying it was to execute the stunt, and how deeply he felt about the sequence. However, as much as that footage meant to him, he had to reduce it to no more than a few seconds to keep the film on pace. To my recollection, he described it to exemplify the toughest choice he had to make as a director.

Perhaps someone can find that interview and post it.

Steve Grossman

Trad climber

Seattle, WA

Jul 24, 2011 - 11:49am PT

Jstan- Fascinating sidelight! I bet that would be some fun.

Mimi and I picked up a few classic press photos from the Eiger Santion recently...

aldude

climber

Monument Manor

Jul 24, 2011 - 01:34pm PT

In the german movie Nordwand the dangling lasts @ least 15 minutes......dramatic, but perhaps too long.....still a good pic!

climbrunride

Ice climber

Purgatory, CO

Topic Author's Reply - Jul 25, 2011 - 01:40am PT

Cool pics.

TrundleBum

Trad climber

Las Vegas

Jul 25, 2011 - 01:46am PT

Wasn't Haebler and Messner's speed ascent of the Nordwand a response to Hollywood wanting to pack up and go home after a death during filming?

Just some hype ^ I had heard in a previous life time?

'Pass the Pitons' Pete

Big Wall climber

like Ontario, Canada, eh?

Jul 25, 2011 - 01:53am PT

Isn't that a Whillans [Ball Crusher] Sit Harness?

I loved the names of the characters:

Jemima Brown
Miles Mellough

But my favourite:

Anna Bidet

"She pronounced her first name with a dark vowel - 'Ah-na' "

Trevanian was an enigma. Only four novels I believe. Shibumi was excellent, great caving action.

Mungeclimber

Trad climber

sorry, just posting out loud.

Jul 25, 2011 - 02:07am PT

what's with that albino!?

James Doty

Trad climber

Phoenix, Az.

Jul 25, 2011 - 03:15am PT

I just watched it again for the first time unedited. It really is a stupid f*#king movie. I loved it.

Steve Grossman

Trad climber

Seattle, WA

Jul 25, 2011 - 10:50am PT

"Go ahead, Make my day." really shoud have snuck in there somewhere. LOL

Rockin' Gal

Trad climber

Boulder

Jul 25, 2011 - 02:07pm PT

Watched it last night, free on demand. My favorite "climbing" movie. Love it when Clint is leading up a chimney on a toprope. Guess he did a lot of the actual climbing.
"North Face, of course."

steelmnkey

climber

Vision man...ya gotta have vision...

Jul 25, 2011 - 03:28pm PT

what's with that albino!?

His full name was Yurassis Dragon.
Trevanian always had good character names.

James Doty

Trad climber

Phoenix, Az.

Jul 25, 2011 - 04:26pm PT

Yes those scenes LOOK like Clint is doing his own climbing. There are a couple sequences of distance shots of someone actually leading the big chimney. Anyone know who the climbing crew was? I think the Bird was on the rigging crew and it was a Hoover deal but who were the stunt climbers?