History Film / TheEagleHasLanded

** Justified as their uniforms, technically speaking, qualified them as enemy soldiers (who had significant rights when captured.) ''Not'' wearing their uniforms would qualify them as spies, and therefore make them subject to summary execution. The tragedy being [[spoiler: [[{{Irony}} the tactic they use to avoid being killed... is what gets them all killed.]]]]

* AmericaWonWorldWarII: A company of US Rangers just happens to be stationed in a manor right next to the village, and is tasked to neutralise the German commandos head-on before Churchill arrives. While there are plenty of British characters, they provide mostly the InnocentBystander and [[BiggerBad Bigger "Bad"]] (in a seemingly HeroAntagonist kind of way) roles.
** Also straight-up invoked, as Colonel Pitts refuses to call in the presence of the Germans to the British [[GloryHound so he can hog all the glory for himself]].
** Zig-zagged and ultimately subverted. The American Colonel's plan of attack ends in complete disaster, succeeding only in getting him and many of his men killed. While a second attack (led by his subordinate) is successful, [[spoiler:Steiner escapes to confront Churchill... who is revealed to be a decoy, making the entire battle essentially meaningless.]]

* AmericaSavesTheDay/[[AmericaWinsTheWar Wins The War]]: A company of US Rangers just happens to be stationed in a manor right next to the village, and is tasked to neutralise the German commandos head-on before Churchill arrives. While there are plenty of British characters, they provide mostly the InnocentBystander and [[BiggerBad Bigger "Bad"]] (in a seemingly HeroAntagonist kind of way) roles.

* HistoryMarchesOn / RuleOfCool: [[spoiler: In RealLife the Nazis really did send a commando squad to assassinate Churchill, but they knew all about the Tehran Conference and sent them there, and Roosevelt and Stalin were targets as well. They were foiled before they got anywhere near him or any of the other leaders. Incidentally the mission was headed (from abroad) by Otto Skorzeny, the man who rescued Mussolini which in-universe inspired the events of the story.]]

** Zig-zagged and ulitimately subverted. The American Colonel's plan of attack ends in complete disaster, succeeding only in getting him and many of his men killed. While a second attack (led by his subordinate) is successful, [[spoiler:Steiner escapes to confront Churchill... who is revealed to be a decoy, making the entire battle essentially meaningless.]]

* TheNeidermeyer: Colonel Pitts. Piqued at being ordered back to the US (he is considered too inexperienced to participate in D-Day) he launches an attack on the church where the German Fallschirmjager (paratroops) are holed up without doing a proper recon, completely missing the germans hidden at various points in the village and wiping out his entire platoon; to top it all he gets killed by Joanna Grey while trying to kill her with a grenade; since they were played by Larry Hagman and Jean Marsh respectively this spawned a thousend t-shirts saying "Rose (from "Upstairs Downstairs") Shot J.R!"(from "Dallas")

* AmericaSavesTheDay/[[AmericaWinsTheWar Wins The War]]: A company of US Rangers just happenes to be stationed in a manor right next to the village, and is tasked to neutralise the German commandos head-on before Churchill arrives. While there are plenty of British characters, they provide mostly the InnocentBystander and [[BiggerBad Bigger "Bad"]] roles.

* FakeNationality: Almost all Germans are played by British actors. Also, Robert Duvall.
** Not to mention Canadian Donald Sutherland playing the Irish contact Liam Devlin.

* HistoryMarchesOn/ RuleOfCool: [[spoiler: In RealLife the Nazis really did send a commando squad to assassinate Churchill, but they knew all about the Tehran Conference and sent them there, and Roosevelt and Stalin were targets as well. They were foiled before they got anywhere near him or any of the other leaders. Incidentally the mission was headed (from abroad) by Otto Skorzeny, the man who rescued Mussolini which in-universe inspired the events of the story.]]

* TokenGoodTeammate: Steiner and his team, as well as Liam Devlin and Colonel Radl along with his staff subordinate played by Michael Byrne (as part of being {{Typecast}} as a Nazi or WWII German soldier in his acting career), are considered to be this to the rest of Nazi Germany.

* VillainProtagonist: The protagonists are a group of German commandos trying to assassinate Churchill under orders from Heinrich Himmler. The film does establish that the commandos themselves are honorable men [[MyCountryRightOrWrong concerned only with their mission]] and are disgusted by the war crimes they witness, even if their bosses might be mass murderers.

** Justified as their uniforms, technically speaking, qualified them as enemy soldiers (who had significant rights when captured.) ''Not'' wearing their uniforms would qualify them as spies, and therefore make them subject to summary execution.

** Justified as their uniforms, technically speaking, qualified them as enemy soldiers (who had significant rights when captured.) ''Not'' wearing their uniforms would qualify them as spies, and therefore make them subject to summary execution by firing squad.

** Even more so justified, as Colonel Pitts refuses to call in the presence of the Germans to the British [[GloryHound so he can hog all the glory for himself]].

* CurbStompBattle: Inflicted by the hardened veteran German paratroopers upon the relatively inexpierenced American Rangers mainy due to the incompetence of Colonel Pitt.

* CurbStompBattle: Once the regular troops kick in, they don't let any chance to the German commando.

* AmericaSavesTheDay: A company of US Rangers just happenes to be stationed in a manor right next to the village, and is tasked to neutralise the German commandos head-on before Churchill arrives. While there are plenty of British characters, they provide mostly the InnocentBystander and [[BiggerBad Bigger "Bad"]] roles.

* AmericaWinsTheWar: A company of US Rangers just happenes to be stationed in a manor right next to the village, and is tasked to neutralise the German commandos head-on before Churchill arrives. While there are plenty of British characters, they provide mostly the InnocentBystander and [[BiggerBad Bigger "Bad"]] roles.

* AmericaWinsTheWar: A company of US Rangers happened to be stationed in a manor right next to the village, and are tasked to fight the German commandos head-on. There are plenty of British characters, but they provide mostly the InnocentBystander and [[BiggerBad Bigger "Bad"]] roles.

* DoomedByCanon: If you know history, you will know that the Germans' do not succeed, [[spoiler: and in fact, he wasn't even in the country at that point in time.]]
* EyepatchOfPower: While Radl does wear a black eyepatch, he is neither particularly evil nor that powerful. He is in fact a calm, empathetic and remotely fatalistic officer.

* AntiVillain: All of the German's and their allies are {{Punch Clock Villain}}s who seek to avoid unnecessary casualties [[spoiler: mostly]] and in some cases feel they have legitimate grievances against the British. The exception is Heinrich Himmler, who signed off on the mission and is pretty much as much a bastard as he was in RealLife.

* HistoryMarchesOn/ RuleOfCool: [[spoiler: In RealLife the Nazi's really did send a commando squad to assassinate Churchill, but they knew all about the Tehran Conference and sent them there, and Roosevelt and Stalin were targets as well. They were foiled before they got anywhere near him or any of the other leaders. Incidentally the mission was headed (from abroad) by Otto Skorzeny, the man who rescued Mussolini which in-universe inspired the events of the story.]]

* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Devlin and Steiner are both composites of numerous real life people, most of whom had much colder relations with the Nazi's. Averted with Heinrich Himmler, played to perfection by Donald Pleasance, and Admiral Canaris who in reality was involved in several plots to assassinate ''Hitler''.

* ShownTheirWork: While most movies of this era handwaved the use of non-German equipment by Germans by simply assuming the audience wouldn't be able to tell the difference, they actually go out of their way in this one to provide believable reasons for it, such as the British torpedo boat used by Steiners men being specifically mentioned as being a captured vessel, as well as the C-47 that was used to drop them into England.

''The Eagle Has Landed'' is a 1976 film [[TheFilmOfTheBook based on the book of the same name]] by Jack Higgins, detailing a fictional plot to capture or kill WinstonChurchill by a group of German commandos. Creator/MichaelCaine, DonaldSutherland and Robert Duvall star as the leader of the squad, their Irish nationalist liaison, and the German colonel in charge of masterminding the mission.