Force 10 from Navarone (1978)

Nice effects though.

I wanted to but couldn't!

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Robert Shaw, Harrison Ford, Barbara Bach, Edward Fox, Franco Nero, and Carl Weathers star in "Force 10 from Navarone" based on a novela by Alistair MacLean and a follow-up to "The Guns of Navarone."Mallory is now played by Shaw instead of Gregory Peck and Miller is now Fox instead of David Niven. It seems there was a traitor with them at Navarone, a man they believe to be dead. But it turns out he escaped. He was a German spy. The Intelligence service thinks he is in Yugoslavian with the Partisans, and Mallory is ordered to find him and kill him. Since only Miller and Mallory know him, they are sent along with a unit, Force 10, run by Colonel Barnsby (Ford) who doesn't want either man as he believes they will slow him down.Force 10's mission is to blow up a bridge. En route their plane is shot and everyone has to bail out. They wind up prisoners of German sympathizers. In order to be released, they tell a lot of lies that the commandant doesn't believe. But unbeknownst to them, they have a friend there.I thought this was pretty good and entertaining and boy, could they blow things up! Lots of special effects and good performances. Amazing seeing how young Harrison Ford was! Recommended. It's not a blockbuster but it is good.

I admit to never having seen the original GUNS OF NAVARONE, but I can report that this underrated sequel is a strong addition to the glut of 1970s-era WW2 movies that were all the rage at the time. These films were often similar to the wave of Hollywood disaster flicks also being made at the time, with expansive budgets big enough to do the stories justice, and ensemble casts of familiar faces.FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE stars a fresh-faced Harrison Ford, straight off the success of STAR WARS. He's a man with a mission to blow up a bridge in Yugoslavia, and he has a bunch of assorted characters helping him. Two of these are Robert Shaw and Edward Fox, playing old timers. Fox and Shaw seemed to be ubiquitous in genre cinema in the 1970s and they both give assured, confident turns.The supporting players turn out to be just as interesting. Barbara Bach is here and as alluring as ever and so is her Bond co-star Richard Kiel as a hulking Partisan fighter. Italian leading man Franco Nero bags an interesting part and gets plenty of screen time. Philip Latham, the butler Klove in Dracula: PRINCE OF DARKNESS, plays the guy who sends the chaps off on their mission at the outset, while Michael Byrne and Michael Sheard play Nazis as usual. Best of the bunch is Carl Weathers, hot off the success of ROCKY, excellent as the youthful, gung ho soldier.The plot of FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE is nothing special; find a traitor, blow up a bridge, you've seen it all before countless times. But the execution is superior. The film is packed with action and special effects which stand the test of time. Director Guy Hamilton does a grand job of the material and elicits likable performances from all of the major players. This is the type of film I caught on Sunday afternoon television but would love to add to my collection one day.

At the surface, this is actually an enjoyable WWII mission-action movie full of personality and clever twists with double-agents and improvisations by commando soldiers with skill and wit, Alistair MacLean style. I was even enjoying this as much as the original Guns of Navarone, that is, until the plot holes popped up (the original also had plot holes). This is not a dumb action movie that begs you to switch off your brain, so the plot holes pretty much ruin the experience. It turns out the whole plot was very significantly changed from the book though so keep that in mind.*spoilers* The biggest plot hole is the fact they were sent there because they knew Nikolai and could identify him and they knew Nikolai was at least a traitor from personal experience. So when they met him, why would they believe the story about another Nikolai that was the real traitor/spy? Another hole is that it turns out the British were constantly in touch with the partisans so they didn't have to send commandos to kill Nikolai, they could have simply told them to kill him.And then there is the whole bluff with the penicillin. First they bluff that they have it in their suitcase but they can't open it, then when it turns out it has wood inside the case, they say they buried it. Any German with half a brain would see the contradiction in the story. If they buried it for that matter, why bring the suitcase at all knowing that the Germans would force them to open it? Also the masked infiltrators were obviously discovered dead by the partisans first since they knew about it when they nabbed Force 10, so why did they leave the dead bodies there to be discovered by the Chetniks and thus give themselves away? Why would Miller instruct them how to plant the bomb at the dam, but not tell them the critical information that it would be a slow destruction and thus let them know how to time the whole thing so that they could get away and not allow the bomb to be discovered?I also had a problem with the fact that simple explosives could not destroy the bridge but water could. But this may be a lack of engineering knowledge on my part and perhaps the water eroded the ground underneath, except that he was going on and on about how it was attached to rock so I have doubts... Also the effects, although very well done, did not show an overwhelming force of water against the bridge that would convince. But, again, it may just be my lack of knowledge here.Pity, because I enjoyed the rest.

Ho-hum WW2 actioner which certainly benefits from its extensive showcasing of the beautiful Slavic countryside, FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE was obviously a name-only sequel cash-in from the start and utterly doomed in trying to fit in with its tonally divergent predecessor.There really weren't too many WW2 movies from the late 70's... actually only BRIDGE TOO FAR (which also starred Edward Fox in a similarly bombastic role) springs to mind, and so this one is a bit of a curiosity especially in terms of casting. As was par for the course at the time a lot of effort is made to bring in foreign audiences by casting European stars, but Franco Nero is largely wasted in an unfortunately obvious role with only one tense scene of note.It's funny to see James Bond alums Richard Kiel (best known as "Jaws" in THE SPY WHO LOVED ME and MOONRAKER) and Barbara Bach together again as Chetniks vs. Spielberg/Lucas protégés Harrison Ford and Robert Shaw (JAWS - the movie) in what is essentially a glorified B war movie only marginally glossier than what Italy and Yugoslavia were pumping out a decade prior.Unfortunately there's a lot of missed opportunities and bad logic which takes this movie down several notches. The Germans are of course portrayed as utterly stupid and are easily bamboozled so many times that they're rendered utterly nonthreatening by the film's end. Carl Weathers provides probably the most likable and 3-dimensional of all the characters in the film but his presence doesn't really make much sense or add anything aside from some comedic moments with Richard Kiel, who takes an instant dislike to him. Harrison Ford sleepwalks his way through the film and Robert Shaw looks and acts as exhausted as he probably was at this time so near to the end of his life.As par for the course there's plenty of explosions and gun-play but unfortunately quite wasted in a largely daft and sloppily made film.Look fast for Doctor Who actors Michael Sheard (later reunited with Ford as Hitler in INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE) and Leslie Schofield (the guy in STAR WARS who tells Peter Cushing that "There is a danger") in bit parts as German soldiers. Also don't blink or you'll miss some nudity courtesy of Ms. Bach only two years prior to her marriage to Ringo Starr. Also strange is how Robert Rietty (who provided Adolfo Celi's dubbed voice in THUNDERBALL and Tetsuro Tamba's in YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE) here lends his dubbing over Bond villain Richard Kiel! I suppose that's to be expected when you hire on a director best known for Bond movies.