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Hanover Street |
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Force 10 from Navarone (1978)
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The war-movie genre was pretty much dead and buried by the mid-1970s, but after the all-star success of 1977’s “A Bridge Too Far,” the folks at American International Pictures decided, “Hey, we should totally do a war movie, too!” Their concept: to make a sequel to 1961’s “The Guns of Navarone.” One suspects that the reason everyone got involved in the picture was because they saw it as a chance to pay tribute to a classic film from the ‘60s, and, indeed, it often feels as though that’s when “Force 10 from Navarone” was made. Were it not for a cast of ‘70s superstars like Ford, Robert Shaw (Quint from “Jaws”), and Carl Weathers (Apollo Creed from “Rocky”), it could pass for an artifact from that decade. (Barbara Bach and Richard Kiel show up as well, leading one to wonder if “The Spy Who Loved Me” was filming nearby at the time.) Ford plays Lt. Col. Mike Barnsby, leader of an American expedition to raid and destroy a bridge vital to enemy strategy, with Shaw taking over Gregory Peck’s role as Maj. Keith Mallory and Edward Fox stepping into David Niven’s shoes as Sgt. Dusty Miller. Shaw is definitely set up as the star of the show, but Ford’s presence is formidable throughout, with the film’s various fights and explosions giving him ample opportunity to hone his action-star abilities.
 Heroes |
 Hanover Street |