Azanti

Those who like the soundtrack may be interested to know that it is available on CD, I actually also have it on Vinyl!

It is without doubt Andrew V McLaglen's best film, I always wondered the action in his other films never achieved the same standards. For a long time there was even talk of a Wild Geese 3, set back in Africa. I actually spoke to Euan Lloyd about a year ago, on this subject, when totally out of the blue he called me at home. (Embarasingly I thought he was an actor friend playing a practical joke at the time) So many of the support cast have died recently, leaving us just Roger Moore.

vetchbook

I remember liking this film as a child. Not so sure now, many years later. I love the music at the start...

GRAEME

Hooooold the phone! I love The Wild Geese, but as a bit of fun and pyrotechnics - as a movie it isn't a patch on the great Shenandoah with James Stewart or The Way West. Even Chisum has its adherents.

If you said his greatest non-western I'd agree with you. Film preferences are always subjective but "without doubt" is way too strong.

vangogan

Yes, I do . . . he died of cancer, I believe sometime in the 1980s. He wrote The Whispering Death (which has been made into a movie of the same title, although it's also called Albino or Night of the Askaris), Under a Raging Sky, The Square Circle (also known as Wild Geese II or The Return of the Wild Geese, also made into a movie), and then he wrote one about HK/Macau, called Macau. That was his last novel before he died.

I also heard that his sister is author Erin Pizzey.

David

Amethyst_Isle

When I saw The Wild Geese a little while ago something struck me during the scene where Stewart Granger recruits Richard Burton and Stewart Granger asks Richard Burton if it was a nice flight (or something along those lines ) and Richard Burton replies with "a rather rushed meal on the plane" now my question is in the film the word rushed is used but there should be something else there instead as you can see from Burton's lip he is not saying the word rushed it must be either the F word or Burton fluffed his lines by saying F**k and so they redubbed it with rushed.

Can someone else check out this scene on there DVD or Video of it and reply back here and tell me this is so ? as I believe it to be so.

blacknorth

There is some swearing in this film, the F word does, appear - I've never heard Burton use the F word on screen, maybe he thought the better of it and redubbed it.

I still laugh when I think I hear him shout 'Men, we have been double-trossed'.

I love this film, I absolutely love it.

blacknorth

I also have the OST on vinyl but it has a pressing fault, a glitch in that fabulous dico porn track. I'll need to replace it with the CD.

Grey Wyler

That is a shame. He was a great writer. I have read The Wild Geese quite a few times and also Whispering Death (brilliant novel) but my personal favorite was Under A Raging Sky. I recall that it was going to be filmed at one point, can't remember where i read about it, but i think Richard Johnson was in line for one of the main leads. A great adventure it certainly would have been a cracking film.
Does anyone out there have any info on that?

Must track down Macau, as that is the only one left for me to read.

jacobean

Burton did use it at least once - in 'Villain' during the botched wages snatch - He shouted at his driver to 'Ram the f**kers!'

stevie boy

another good reason to watch this again

Amethyst_Isle

The scene in Wild geese was strange as I watched this on tv long ago and it was around the time when they use to substitute the bad language with a softer word
but when I watched it on video and then again on Mosaic dvd it was still there,so I thought it was either a Richard Burton fluffed line and then redubbed on later or it was some other .

I am sure if someone watches that scene again on dvd they will see it is dubbed.

blacknorth

I believe you're right.

There may also have been some heavy swearing in Equus if memory serves, but its many years since I watched.

batman

There is a lot of swearing in Equus and Burton does his fair share.

Jingle bells Batman smells ... I heard that at school Daddy.

BAT QUIZ 16 HAS JUST BEEN POSTED IN THE COMPETITION THREAD - 06/01/09

scholes

Better still Joan Armatrading's singing at the end as the credits are rolling.
I enjoyed the film, but Roger Moore's interpretation of Clint doesn't cut the coleman's does it?
Neither did Kurt Russell's when he played Snake Pliscine in Escape from New York

blacknorth

You know, one of my absolutely favourite things about The Wild Geese is is the opening credits - the way the soundtrack opens with a little introductory flourish and the map of AFrica makes itself from the bottom of the screen up, and then the newsreel footage begins, all of it well-chosen and giving a great context to the Armatrading song.

It contributes greatly to a mood in the film that only fans seem to want to pick up on - a sense of sadness and lucklessness. The dark continent lit up by fire.

Anybody else love that title sequence - I think it's one of the greats.