Rufus Excalibur ffolkes is a
bearded, curmudgeonly adventurer and anti-terrorism expert who hates woman,
loves cats, drinks neat whisky from the neck of the bottle four hours after
breakfast and does petit-point to help him think. He also has little tolerance for those who
possess lesser intellect than himself. When it’s put to him that he “must be
one of those fellows who completes the Times crossword puzzle in ten minutes,”
ffolkes replies with contempt, “I have never
taken ten minutes!”
That this character is played by
Roger Moore may come as something of a surprise, but in between The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and Moonraker (1979), he starred in two highly
entertaining action movies in which he showed that he could be much more than
just Simon Templar or James Bond. These were The Wild Geese, a thrilling tale of mercenaries betrayed by big
business and the high-seas caper North
Sea Hijack, released in the US as ffolkes
(most probably because American audiences wouldn’t have a clue where the North
Sea was) – both directed by Andrew V. McLaglen.
Born in 1920 in Wandsworth, London,
Andrew Victor McLaglen upped sticks and moved to America where he cut his teeth
directing episodes of Perry Mason, Rawhide, The Virginian, Wagon Train
and Gunsmoke as well as directing
many films starring James Stewart and John Wayne, among them: McLintock! (1963), Shenandoah (1965), Hellfighters
(1968), Bandolero! (1968), The Undefeated (1969), Chisum (1970) and Cahill US Marshall (1973). By the time he made The Wild Geese in 1978 and North
Sea Hijack in 1979 he was a well-respected veteran director of solid, unpretentious,
no-frills movies that were designed for one thing and one thing only – entertainment.
This is what one reviewer on IMDB
amusingly wrote about the The Wild Geese:
“Now THIS is what movie-making is all about! Who needs pansy-assed Oscar
winning drivel like A Beautiful Mind
or overblown space-opera garbage like Star
Wars when you can watch Richard Burton, Richard Harris and Roger Moore
blowing stuff up in Africa? I’d rather have my balls dipped into a bucket of
scorpions than watch tripe like Lord of
the Rings or Million Dollar Baby
ever again – but sit me down in front of The
Wild Geese with a bottle of scotch and a packet of ciggies and I’m happier
than a dog in an offal factory.”
 |
| The Wild Geese original poster |
Whilst I agree with him that A Beautiful Mind and Star Wars Episodes 1-3 are utter trash
and disagree with him about Lord of the
Rings and Million Dollar Baby, I
absolutely fervently agree with him about The
Wild Geese. It’s a fantastic, rip-roaring action movie that can be seen almost as a blueprint for
Sylvester Stallone’s The Expendables (although
it’s infinitely better). A group of ageing mercenaries parachute into an
African country to extract an imprisoned leader but are double-crossed and have
to fight their way to safety. With a brilliant ensemble cast, including Richard
Burton, Richard Harris, Roger Moore, Hardy Kruger, Jack Watson, Frank Finlay,
Stewart Granger and Kenneth Griffith, it grabs hold of your attention from the
beginning and never releases its grip for two hours. Stand-out performances are
from German actor Hardy Kruger as Pieter Coetzee, a down-and-out Afrikaner who
wants the money to buy a farm in his native South Africa, Kenneth Griffith as Arthur
Witty, the openly gay medic and the ever-reliable Jack Watson as the tough
Sergeant Major, Sandy Young. On top of that there’s Burton, Harris and Moore
strutting their stuff with Finlay as a Catholic Missionary and Granger as a
hissable villain.
Unlike The Expendables, there are no muscle-bound super-soldiers in The Wild Geese, just a bunch of
disaffected and disillusioned ex-soldiers, bored with civilian life and wanting
the excitement of a last hurrah and a bundle of cash to set themselves up. When
Arthur Witty is offered the job he asks Colonel Faulkner (Burton): “Do I have
time to get a divorce?”
“Thirty-six hours,” replies
Faulkner.
“Oh, lovely, sir,” says Witty, “I
can’t wait to see his face.”
Roger Moore puts in a fine
performance as Shawn Fynn, an ex-army Lieutenant, reduced to a life of petty
crime before being recruited by Colonel Faulkner. Moore appeared on television
as Simon Templar in The Saint, in the
title role as Ivanhoe and as James Garner’s
brother in Maverick but he will most
probably always be remembered as superspy James Bond. Before Bond consumed his
career he had already proven his acting skills in a dual role in the dark
thriller The Man Who Haunted Himself
(1970) and later opposite Lee Marvin in Shout
at the Devil (1976), as a sympathetic German officer in Escape to Athena (1979) and in the
criminally overlooked comedy Bed &
Breakfast (1981). Never one to take himself too seriously and always
displaying an amiable, self-deprecating wit in interviews, he was knighted in
2003 for his services to UNICEF.
I thought he was great in The Wild Geese and he’s every bit as
good as Burton, Harris and Kruger, but his finest performance came a year later
when he starred in the marvellous North
Sea Hijack as the irascible, eccentric egotist Rufus Excalibur ffolkes, a
role that he completely and convincingly inhabits. It’s a wonderful role that
any actor would have jumped at the chance of playing and Roger Moore makes it
his own. Not for one second do you doubt that he is not the cat-loving
misogynist genius you see on the screen. Why on earth he didn’t abandon Bond right
there and then and make more films like this is beyond me.
 |
| North Sea Hijack original poster |
Anthony Perkins is excellent as the
villain of the film, the increasingly unstable and paranoid Kramer, who along
with a young Michael Parks (years before he became a regular for Quentin
Tarantino) and four others hijack a Norwegian cargo freighter called Esther and
has it and the two oil rigs, Ruth and Jennifer, it services fitted with booby
trapped bombs and demand a ransom of 25 million dollars. Esther, Ruth and Jennifer was the title of Jack Davies’ original
novel, from which he adapted the screenplay. Unwilling to negotiate with
terrorists the British government calls in ffolkes and his team who specialise
in hostage rescues and anti-terrorism intervention. He’s assisted by Admiral
Brinsden, played by the great James Mason, who initially distrusts ffolkes but
admires his intelligence in knowing how the hijackers think as the film
progresses. Jack Watson plays Olafsen, the Norwegian captain of Esther and
David Hedison is King, the man in charge of Jennifer.
Most of the action takes place at
sea and the tension builds steadily to a terrific, exciting climax, while
retaining a strong sense of humour. The scenes with Roger Moore and James Mason
are particularly funny, as is ffolkes’s attitude towards King’s secretary,
Sarah and her reactions to his blatant misogyny.
The Wild Geese and North Sea Hijack
are my two favourite action movies of the 1970s and they still hold up
exceedingly well today, much more, in fact, than many films of that genre of
the past thirty years. So, when you’re at a loose end on a wet winter Sunday
afternoon at the offal factory, you’re fridge is stocked up with beer and you
have a plentiful supply of ciggies, why not slam these two movies into your DVD
player and watch them back-to-back and see for yourself that they really don’t make them like this
anymore.
