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"Euan [Lloyd] had a reputation of being a bit of a right-winger" - Sydney Samuelson
"Don't f*** around with Moore!" - Roger Moore (on practical jokes)
"That Jimmy Granger. He hasn't made a film for fifteen years and he's still a bugger!" - Richard Burton
"F*** 'em!" - Stewart Granger (on shooting another take)
"Ronnie [Fraser] would take five or six papers and roll a joint the size of a toilet role tube. He was stoned for most of the picture." - Roger Moore
"If I were dead and you were a f***ing hearse I wouldn't ride in you!" - Richard Burton (to a crew member)
Suffice it to say, the production of The Wild Geese had its problems. These quotes, coupled with Burton and Richard Harris' drinking problems should give you a good idea of exactly what went on. What's left is a bloody enjoyable, if politically nonsensical, slice of brutal action, camaraderie, tragedy and loss that doesn't let up. It's typical McLaglen fare that would become something of a tradition after The Sea Wolves and Return From The River Kwai - a gang of old servicemen (played by whole range of international stars) meet up again for one last mission, the toughest and deadliest of their lives. In Geese we have the aforementioned Burton, Harris and Moore as veteran commandos alongside Hardy Krüger's white supremacist (whose views on the apartheid are suddenly changed in the blink of an eye upon a discussion with John Kani) and Jack Watson, Kenneth Griffith and Barry Foster. Their mission is to spring Kani's Ugandan leader from a military camp in the heart of Africa and return home, until they are double crossed that is. Moore and Krüger are merely serviceable but this is good, violent stuff with a particularly believable onscreen friendship between Burton and Harris, who turns in the finest performance. As a message movie, the film's a mess.
