The Diamond Mercenaries * (1976, Telly Savalas, Peter Fonda, Hugh O’Brian, Christopher Lee, Maud Adams, O J Simpson) – Classic Movie Review 11,056

Director Val Guest’s 1975 action crime thriller adventure The Diamond Mercenaries [Killer Force] has a particularly interesting and promising mixed group of actors to recommend it and a capable director. It is filmed where it is set, in South Africa.

But The Diamond Mercenaries is a muddled international caper about five-man team of professional mercenaries mounting a daring heist on a diamond mine in South Africa.

The decent cast seem weary and can’t do much to raise it above routine, the action is very tame, the plot drab, and the production looks cheap and unimpressive.

It is an Ireland/ South Africa/ Switzerland/ US co-production.

The screenplay is by Val Guest, Michael Winder and Gerald Sanford.

Savalas and Lee were both Bond villains – Blofeld in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and Scaramanga in The Man with the Golden Gun – while Maud Adams appeared in three Bond movies as different characters: as Andrea Anders in The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), the title character in Octopussy (1983) and uncredited in A View to a Kill (1985).

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,056

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