10 War Movie Plot Twists That Nobody Saw Coming
7. Smith, Schaffer And Turner's True Identities Are Revealed - Where Eagles Dare
Based on an original screenplay from legendary novelist Alistair MacLean, 1968's Where Eagles Dare is renowned as one of the greatest war films ever conceived. Led by Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood as Major John Smith and Lieutenant Morris Schaffer respectively, Brian G. Hutton's picture is as renowned for its immortal twist ending as it is for its exemplary overall quality.
Where Eagles Dare is initially touted as a joint British-American operation to rescue a US general from a remote castle in the German Alps. As the movie progresses, the rescue mission is unmasked as a ruse - the operation is actually an ingenious cover story to mask the real goal of obtaining vital enemy intelligence.
After eventually making a thrilling escape, Smith reveals the movie's final mindblowing bombshell as he is debriefed by Patrick Wymark's Colonel Turner aboard a transport plane. Burton's soldier reveals that he and Schaffer actually joined the mission on behalf of MI6 to root out the top German undercover agent operating in Britain - an individual that the intelligence gathered on the mission revealed to be none other than Turner himself.
Unsurprisingly, the duplicitous Colonel wisely elects to avoid a trial by jumping out of the aircraft to his death. The shock factor of this twist was clearly too much for him to handle.