Development In October 1974, Paramount announced they had purchased the film rights to Jack Higgins'
The Eagle Has Landed in partnership with Jack Wiener, formerly an executive at Paramount. The book came out in 1975 and was a bestseller, but the author had doubted whether anyone would be interested in making a film of the novel because its protagonists were German soldiers. He was amazed that the rights were not only sold within a fortnight but that the film was brought to production so swiftly.
Casting Michael Caine was originally offered the part of Devlin but did not want to play a member of the IRA, so asked if he could have the role of Steiner.
Richard Harris was in line to play Devlin, but ongoing comments he had made in support of the IRA and attendance at an IRA fundraising event in America embroiled him in scandal and drew threats to the film's producers, so he was removed from the production and Donald Sutherland was given the role instead. In March 1976,
The New York Times announced that
David Bowie would play a German Nazi in the film if his schedule could be worked out. Jean Marsh's role was originally offered to
Deborah Kerr, who turned it down.
Filming Filming took place in 1976 over sixteen weeks.
Tom Mankiewicz thought the script was the best he had ever written but felt "John Sturges, for some reason, had given up" and did a poor job, and that editor
Anne V. Coates was the one who saved the movie and made it watchable. Michael Caine had initially been excited at the prospect of working with Sturges. During shooting, Sturges told Caine that he only worked to earn enough money to go fishing. Caine wrote later in his autobiography: "The moment the picture finished he took the money and went. [Producer] Jack Wiener later told me [Sturges] never came back for the editing nor for any of the other good post-production sessions that are where a director does some of his most important work. The picture wasn't bad, but I still get angry when I think of what it could have been with the right director. We had committed the old European sin of being impressed by someone just because he came from Hollywood." Editor Anne Cotes recalled "I didn’t think it was a great film, but it was a good idea... That was a much better script than it was a film. It was quite a good script actually."
Cornwall was used to represent the
Channel Islands, and
Berkshire for
East Anglia. The majority of the film, set in the fictional village of Studley Constable, was filmed at
Mapledurham on the
A4074 in
Oxfordshire and features the village church, as well as
Mapledurham Watermill and
Mapledurham House, used for a manor house where Winston Churchill is taken. A fake
water wheel was added to the 15th-century structure for the film. Mock buildings such as shops and a pub were constructed on site in Mapledurham while interiors were filmed at
Twickenham Studios. The "Landsvoort Airfield" scenes were filmed at
RAF St Mawgan, five miles (8 km) from
Newquay. The sequence set in Alderney was filmed in
Charlestown, near
St Austell in Cornwall. Some of the filming took place at
Rock in Cornwall. The railway station sequence where Steiner and his men make their first appearance was filmed in
Rovaniemi,
Finland. The parachuting scenes were carried out by members of the
REME (Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers)
Parachute Display Team on Wednesday 28 April 1976. The exit shots were filmed from a
DC-3 at
Dunkeswell Airfield in Devon. The landings onto the beach were filmed on
Holkham Beach in Norfolk. Cotes recalled Sturges "ad a lot of problems with Donald Sutherland, who wanted his part building up, wanted his love scenes, with Jenny Agutter... built up... :e kept on writing new scenes and giving them to John." ==Reception==