Force 10 from Navarone ** (1978, Robert Shaw, Edward Fox, Franco Nero, Harrison Ford, Barbara Bach, Carl Weathers, Richard Kiel, Angus MacInnes, Michael Byrne, Alan Badel) – Classic Movie Review  13,514

The 1978 action war film sequel Force 10 from Navarone stars Robert Shaw, Edward Fox, Franco Nero, Harrison Ford and Barbara Bach.

Director Guy Hamilton’s 1978 war film sequel Force 10 from Navarone stars Robert Shaw, Edward Fox, Franco Nero, Harrison Ford, Barbara Bach, Carl Weathers, Richard Kiel, Angus MacInnes, Michael Byrne, and Alan Badel. It is very loosely based on Alistair MacLean’s 1968 novel, which started as a screen treatment to an unmade early Sixties follow-up film to The Guns of Navarone.

Robert Shaw, Edward Fox and Harrison Ford are the force that’s with us in this belated sequel to J Lee Thompson’s 1961 action adventure classic film The Guns of Navarone, this time made by James Bond director Guy Hamilton.

Nasty German spy Nicolai (Franco Nero, taking over from Tutte Lemkow) in the original) gets in the way of a dirty dozen or so commandos who are trying to demolish a bridge in Yugoslavia that is essential to the Nazis. Major Keith Mallory and Sergeant Donovan “Dusty” Miller (Robert Shaw and Edward Fox, taking over from Gregory Peck and David Niven in the original) are sent to find and eliminate him.

Carl Foreman, producer-writer on the original film The Guns of Navarone, again writes the story from Alistair MacLean’s novel, but this time the results are only so-so, despite the decent acting you would expect from the distinguished cast.

Carl Foreman wrote the script treatment and served as executive producer, but Oliver A Unger ended up producing and Robin Chapman (The Triple Echo) writing the screenplay. George MacDonald Fraser worked on the script during filming in Yugoslavia.

It runs 118 minutes (release version) or 126 minutes (restored version). Ron Goodwin scored the film to the 126-minute version in summer of 1978, but the film was cut to 118 minutes for release.

It is made by Navarone Productions, and released by Columbia Pictures (UK) and American International Pictures (US). AIP agreed to distribute the film in the US and Canada and provide $2.1 million of the budget.

Peck and Niven were judged too old 17 years after the original and their roles were recast. Even so, Robert Shaw said: ‘I find it a bit ridiculous at my age to be running around a mountain in Yugoslavia saying ‘Let’s go’.’ Tragically, he died of a heart attack (aged 51) on 28 August 1978 before the film was released on 7 December 1978. He made one more film, Avalanche Express (1979).

It is Harrison Ford’s first film after Star Wars. He said he picked the part because it was a ‘strong supporting character very different from Han Solo. I wanted to avoid being stereotyped as a science fiction type. It wasn’t a bad film. There were honest people involved and it was an honest effort. But it wasn’t the right thing for me to do.’

Filming went for five months starting in late 1977 in Yugoslavia and Shepperton Studios outside London. President Tito of Yugoslavia provided 2,000 soldiers as extras, as well as uniforms, equipment and army tanks. He even visited the set. Hilariously, cinematographer Christopher Challis recalled that the film was intended to be shot in Pakistan until it was realised that Pakistanis did not resemble Yugoslavians or Germans and the expense to make them look like them would be financially prohibitive.

Barbara Bach (born August 27, 1946) played Bond girl Anya Amasova in The Spy Who Loved Me. She is married to Ringo Starr after meeting in 1980, on the set of the film Caveman (1981).

The cast are Robert Shaw. Edward Fox, Franco Nero, Harrison Ford, Barbara Bach, Carl Weathers, Richard Kiel, Angus MacInnes, Michael Byrne, Alan Badel, Philip Latham, Christopher Malcolm, Nick Ellsworth. Jonathan Blake, Michael Sheard, Petar Buntic, and Paul Humpoletz.

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review  13,514

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