Juggernaut (1974 Film)
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''Juggernaut'' is a 1974 British crime suspense film starring Richard Harris, Omar Sharif, and
Anthony Hopkins Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins (born 31 December 1937) is a Welsh actor. Considered one of Britain's most recognisable and prolific actors, he is known for List of Anthony Hopkins performances, his performances on the screen and stage. Hopkins ha ...
. The film, which was directed by
Richard Lester Richard Lester Liebman (born January 19, 1932) is an American retired film director, who spent the majority of his professional life in the United Kingdom. He is known for the fast-paced, flamboyant directing he brought to his comedy films, mo ...
, was largely shot on location aboard the TS ''Hamburg'' in the
North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. A sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Se ...
. It was inspired by real events aboard '' QE2'' in May 1972 when Royal Marines and Special Boat Service personnel parachuted onto the ship because of a bomb hoax. In the film, Richard Harris leads a team of Naval bomb disposal experts sent to disarm several large barrel bombs that have been placed aboard an ocean liner crossing the North Atlantic. Meanwhile, ashore, the police race against time to track down the mysterious bomb maker, who calls himself "Juggernaut", who will agree to a ransom in order to reveal the information that will disarm the bombs.


Plot

The
ocean liner An ocean liner is a type of passenger ship primarily used for transportation across seas or oceans. Ocean liners may also carry cargo or mail, and may sometimes be used for other purposes (such as for pleasure cruises or as hospital ships). The ...
SS ''Britannic'' is voyaging through the
North Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the Age of Discovery, it was known for ...
with 1200 passengers on board when the shipping line's owner Nicholas Porter in
London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
receives a call from someone with an Irish accent styling himself as "Juggernaut", who claims to have placed high explosives aboard which are timed to explode and sink the ship at dawn on the following day. The drums are booby-trapped in various ways, and he warns that any attempt to move them will result in detonation, and offers that technical instructions in how to render the bombs safe will be given in exchange for a ransom of £500,000. As an indication of his seriousness, he sets off a demonstration attack with small bombs behind the ships funnel, which injure one crewman. Unable to order an evacuation of passengers via lifeboats due to rough seas, the shipping line's management is inclined to yield to the ransom demand, however British government officials inform the company that if it does so they will withdraw the company's operating subsidy in line with the Government's policy of non-appeasement of terrorism. Instead, a
Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...
officer, Lt. Cmdr. Anthony Fallon, leading a bomb-disposal unit, is dispatched, arriving on the scene by air transit and parachuting, to board the ship and defuse the barrel-bombs before the deadline. Meanwhile, back in London, Supt. McCleod, whose wife and two children happen to be holidaying on board the ship, leads
Scotland Yard Scotland Yard (officially New Scotland Yard) is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, the territorial police force responsible for policing Greater London's London boroughs, 32 boroughs. Its name derives from the location of the original ...
's investigation to capture the criminal master-bomber. After an attempt to drill a hole into a barrel-bomb fails, setting it off and damaging the ship, Fallon decides to split up his team with each man working simultaneously on each of the remaining devices around the ship, Fallon going first with each stage of the defusing operation and coordinating his men by radio link, with the aim that if he fails and his bomb explodes, his men will know what went wrong and continue the process onwards, with his second in command taking up the lead. If two more bombs go off, the ship will sink. Fallon proceeds to disarm the bomb he is working on, apparently successfully, with his men following each step. However, it contains a hidden mechanism, which his second in command, close friend Charlie Braddock, accidentally triggers, resulting in his death when it explodes, causing further damage to the ship. A distraught Fallon abandons the operation and tells the ship's captain, Alex Brunel, to advise the shipping line to pay the ransom to avoid any more carnage. However, when negotiations with Juggernaut break down (in part because Juggernaut sees the trap police set for him when he goes to collect the ransom) Fallon is ordered by the captain to continue disarming the bombs. Meanwhile, a police search back in London captures the bomber posing as Juggernaut, who is revealed to be an embittered former British military bomb-disposal officer, Sidney Buckland. When told of the news, Fallon, still working on disabling the bombs, reveals that Buckland had trained him and once saved his life. He insists that Buckland be put in contact with him. Buckland is escorted to the police situation room. By this time Fallon has worked out the important details of his procedure but has no way of knowing which of two options (cutting a red or blue wire) will disable the bombs, and if he chooses the wrong one it will detonate them. Time is running out and dawn is fast approaching. Fallon and Juggernaut talk, and, because of their former comradeship, Juggernaut agrees to tell Fallon how to safely disarm the bombs. Juggernaut orders to ‘cut the blue wire’ over audio. Fallon, sensing he is being lied to, cuts the red wire instead and manages to disable the bomb. The rest of the bomb-disposal unit follow Fallon's example, and the ship and its passengers are saved.


Cast


Production


Development

Richard Alan Simmons's script was inspired by a real life bomb threat against the '' Queen Elizabeth 2'' in 1972, which resulted in Special forces (one SAS, two from the Special Boat Squadron and a Welsh bomb disposal expert of the Royal Army Ordnance Corps) being parachuted into the Atlantic to board and search the liner, as dramatized in the film. The film was the second of a three-picture deal produced by David V. Picker after he resigned as head of production for United Artists (the first was '' Lenny''). It was made by his company, Two Roads. United Artists would distribute. In November 1973 it was reported that
Bryan Forbes Bryan Forbes Order of the British Empire, CBE (; born John Theobald Clarke; 22 July 1926 – 8 May 2013) was an English film director, screenwriter, film producer, actor and novelist described as a "Renaissance man"Falk Q. . BAFTA. 17 October 2 ...
was to direct, with Simmons producing and Richard Harris starring, with filming set to begin in January 1974. On 6 December 1973, it was reported that
Bryan Forbes Bryan Forbes Order of the British Empire, CBE (; born John Theobald Clarke; 22 July 1926 – 8 May 2013) was an English film director, screenwriter, film producer, actor and novelist described as a "Renaissance man"Falk Q. . BAFTA. 17 October 2 ...
had left the project and been replaced by Don Medford. On 5 February 1974, it was reported that Medford, too, had left the project. Picker then turned to Richard Lester, with whom he had made a number of films at United Artists, notably ''A Hard Day's Night''. Lester was finishing work on the ''Musketeers'' films in Spain when he got a call from Denis O'Dell saying "We just fired our second director and I've got a Russian ship and we've got to leave on 18 February. Will you take it on?" On taking over the film, Lester completely rewrote the script with writer
Alan Plater Alan Frederick Plater (15 April 1935 – 25 June 2010) was an English playwright and screenwriter, who worked extensively in British television from the 1960s to the 2000s. He is best known for the sitcom ''Oh No It's Selwyn Froggitt'' and th ...
. Omar Sharif, Richard Harris and David Hemmings were already cast; Lester cast the rest. He wound up filming three weeks after his original call. "I think if I'd sat carefully and thought about it I wouldn't have done it," said Lester later. "It was very exciting. And I think that energy of getting it right carried it through. It was a wonderful experience, great fun." The film's writer/producer, Richard Alan Simmons, was so unhappy with the reworked script that he had himself credited as Richard DeKoker on the finished film.


Filming

Filming took place in March and April 1974. The film was shot mainly aboard the real
cruise ship Cruise ships are large passenger ships used mainly for vacationing. Unlike ocean liners, which are used for transport, cruise ships typically embark on round-trip voyages to various ports of call, where passengers may go on Tourism, tours k ...
TS ''Hamburg''. The German vessel had recently been sold to the
Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
Black Sea Shipping Company and renamed TS ''Maxim Gorkiy''. Before the
Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
s began operating the ship for paying passengers, the British production company chartered the ship. Advertisements were run in British papers, soliciting extras who would take a lengthy cruise in the
North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. A sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Se ...
for free, but with the knowledge that the ship would actually seek out the worst possible weather, as the story demanded seas too rough for the lifeboats to be lowered, trapping the passengers on board. They received 2,500 applicants and had to select 250. Weather was bad; Ian Holm did not go on location but says he heard "reports of horrible storms off Iceland and everybody getting drunk to deal with it. The story was the bar closed only between seven and seven-thirty in the morning." The ship's charter was negotiated at a set rate in February 1974, while oil prices were continuously skyrocketing due to the still-ongoing
1973 oil crisis In October 1973, the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) announced that it was implementing a total oil embargo against countries that had supported Israel at any point during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, which began after Eg ...
. As a result, the Soviets, who paid the vessel's operating costs during filming, ended up losing money on the deal. Lester says the film was scheduled for ten weeks and completed in six. Some interior filming was completed on stages at Pinewood Studios. Location shooting was also done in and around London. A room at
St Thomas' Hospital St Thomas' Hospital is a large NHS teaching hospital in Central London, England. Administratively part of the Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, together with Guy's Hospital, Evelina London Children's Hospital, Royal Brompton Hospita ...
in
Lambeth Lambeth () is a district in South London, England, which today also gives its name to the (much larger) London Borough of Lambeth. Lambeth itself was an ancient parish in the county of Surrey. It is situated 1 mile (1.6 km) south of Charin ...
overlooking the
River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, s ...
doubled as the office of the Managing Director of the shipping line. The movie marked the film debut of Simon MacCorkindale.


Reception


Critical reception

The ''New York Times'' called it "a movie without any style and without any characters." Stanley Kauffmann of
The New Republic ''The New Republic'' (often abbreviated as ''TNR'') is an American magazine focused on domestic politics, news, culture, and the arts from a left-wing perspective. It publishes ten print magazines a year and a daily online platform. ''The New Y ...
wrote- 'Juggernaut missed the boat, but its editing and photography were in themselves thrilling'.
Pauline Kael Pauline Kael (; June 19, 1919 – September 3, 2001) was an American film critic who wrote for ''The New Yorker'' from 1968 to 1991. Known for her "witty, biting, highly opinionated and sharply focused" reviews, Kael often defied the conse ...
said: "The only disaster picture that has redeemed the genre is Richard Lester’s 'Juggernaut,' which kidded the threadbare pants off the same clichés that the other pictures still try to make work." ''Juggernaut'' holds an 80% rating on
Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...
based on 10 reviews.


Box Office

Lester thought the film was hurt by the fact people thought it was a disaster movie when "that wasn't what it was at all."Soderbergh p 117


Home media

The 2005 UK DVD release used the alternate title ''Terror on the Britannic''. The film was released on Blu Ray by
Kino Lorber Kino Lorber is an international film distribution company based in New York City. Founded in 1977, it was originally known as Kino International until it was acquired by and merged into Lorber HT Digital in 2009. It specializes in art film, art ho ...
on 9 September 2014. The film was released on blu ray in the UK on November 18, 2024 by Eureka Entertainnent which is a limited edition of 2000 copies.


References


Notes

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External links

* * {{Authority control 1974 films 1974 crime thriller films 1970s disaster films British crime thriller films British disaster films Films directed by Richard Lester Films set in London Films set in the Atlantic Ocean Films set on ships Films shot at Pinewood Studios British seafaring films United Artists films Films scored by Ken Thorne 1970s English-language films 1970s British films Films set on ocean liners Films set on cruise ships English-language crime thriller films