The Wild Geese
Revisited these after Too Late The Hero, and it's hard to think of a more perfect film than this. It just seems to look better every time. Not a bad performance in it and it's sad to think that, of the main stars, only Roger Moore & Hardy Kruger are still with us.
Admittedly Joan Armourplating's theme song should have been sent to oblivion but why carp when everything else is so good (including a brief appearance by a short-skirted Suzanne Danielle). Would this film have worked with the originally cast Burt Lancaster (as Janders), Stephen Boyd (as the RSM) or Joseph Cotten (as Sir Edward)? No, I don't think so.
[spoiler]The death scenes of the main characters are also deeply moving. Especially Harris, Kruger (who drools a bit too much for my liking) & Jack Watson. Even the graphic stabbing of the heroic Kenneth Griffith is horrific and disturbing. The look on Burton's face as he holds the hand of the dead Limbani is sheer brilliance.[/spoiler]
Films like this are impossible to improve upon. It's what great movies are all about.
Wild Geese II
Let's get this out of the way quick. A great big steaming turd of a film with no redeeming features whatsoever, and an insult to the movie that shares its title. Wild Geese? No, more like Vile Turkey.
I can find nothing good about this atrocious mess. A badly acted, badly scripted misfire that doesn't even waste a good cast (because it isn't). Richard Burton died before making this (bet it was just an excuse) and the role (which wasn't in the book anyway as the Burton character was killed off in the original novel) was rewritten as his brother (mercenaries run high in the family) and given to a hopelessly miscast Edward Fox ("Thanks for the party, chaps. Wouldn't have missed it for the world") who seemed as threatening as a one-legged stoat. Stratford Johns sweats a lot as a fat Arab ("By jove sir, I like your style") and as for Laurence Olivier.... well, this is on par with Inchon and The Jazz Singer ("I hef no son!") as his most lamentable performance.
Absolute bilge.
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