HARRISON FORD AND ROBERT SHAW ‘FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE’

Title: FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE Year: 1978 Rating: ****1/2

It was unnecessary starting FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE with an introduction about the original GUNS OF NAVARONE since the two have no important connections with each other, other than the same primary leads — replacing Gregory Peck with Robert Shaw and David Niven with Edward Fox as Mallory and Miller, respectively...

While adding the newly-popular Harrison Ford from the previous years' STAR WARS as grouchy yet intrepid, sharp-shooting American Captain Barnsby, who, with his own secret mission, is initially spiteful working alongside the veteran Brits — and as an actor joined the list of scene-stealers from then-current blockbusters, including Shaw himself, the jovially-cantankerous shark-hunter Quint from JAWS, albeit classy and reserved here (playing the central role)...

Harrison Ford and Robert Shaw in FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE with Carl Weathers

Also Carl Weathers, the cocky boxing champ from ROCKY as a moody medic hitching a ride when the secret double-mission begins on an escaping warplane... plus two actors from the Roger Moore/James Bond breakthrough THE SPY WHO LOVED ME in formidable fan-favorite Richard Kiel, lovely Barbara Bach and also, director Guy Hamilton...

An always capable British filmmaker not only befitting the action, but strategically maneuvering the busy twist-and-turn espionage between FORCE 10 traipsing throughout rural German-ruled Yugoslavia, being captured before escaping, usually while undercover, donning enemy uniforms (like STAR WARS) and ultimately having to blow up a bridge after pinpointing (to assassinate) a lethal German agent, hiding in plain sight...

Franco Nero and Alan Badel in FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE

Wherein a slow-burn Franco Nero's even more intriguing and unpredictable than intentional wild-card Weathers, instantly (and unrealistically) argumentative with Ford's square-jawed sidekick in another STAR WARS alumni, Angus MacInnes, a Stanley Baker doppelganger from the original 1961 classic...

Yet FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE is far more loose and open: not filmed in a restrictive, contained studio for the editing to save the picture... but instead suspensefully thrusting the characters (and audience) into the eclectic wide open, constantly in danger where anything can happen, and, from gun-fights to fist-fights to knife-fights to plane rides to train rides to land-mines to anticipated gigantic bridge detonations, almost everything imaginable does.

From FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE

Robert Shaw in FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE

Harrison Ford in FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE

Harrison Ford and Robert Shaw in FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE

Angus MacInnes and Carl Weathers in FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE

Harrison Ford in FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE

Harrison Ford and Robert Shaw in FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE

Richard Kiel in FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE

Barbara Bach and Michael Byrne in FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE

Harrison Ford and Robert Shaw in FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE with Carl Weathers

Angus MacInnes and Carl Weathers in Force 10 from Navarone with Harrison Ford & Robert Shaw

Edward Fox in Force 10 from Navarone with Harrison Ford & Robert Shaw

Franco Nero and Carl Weathers in Force 10 from Navarone with Harrison Ford & Robert Shaw

Angus MacInnes with Harrison Ford in FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE

Harrison Ford and Robert Shaw in FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE

Harrison Ford and Robert Shaw in FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE

Edward Fox with Harrison Ford and Robert Shaw in FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE

Franco Nero in FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE

Harrison Ford in FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE

Harrison Ford and Robert Shaw in FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE

Harrison Ford and Robert Shaw in FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE

Harrison Ford  in FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE

Franco Nero in FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE

Edward Fox in FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE

Robert Shaw in FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE

Harrison Ford and Robert Shaw in FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE

Harrison Ford in FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE