This week’s pick is the 1978 release of Force 10 from Navarone, directed by Guy Hamilton (Battle of Britain). This was the sequel to the 1961 film The Guns of Navarone, which I wrote about last week. The film is loosely based off the novel of the same name also written by Alistair MacLean in 1968.

Robert Shaw this time portrays Keith Mallory as he and his accomplice Miller (Edward Fox) tag along with an American Colonel (Harrison Ford) who is sent into Yugoslavia to blow up a German held bridge which threatens Partisan forces in the region. The supporting cast include Carl Weathers (Sgt. Weaver), Richard Kiel (Captain Drazak), Barbara Bach (Maritza Petrovich), Michael Byrne (Maj. Schroeder), Alan Badel (Maj. Petrovich), and Franco Nero (Capt. Nikolai Lescovar).

The film opens up with a recap of the previous film (for those of us who like to watch sequels in reverse order), and tells of the successful mission led by Mallory, originally played by Gregory Peck, and Cpl. Miller (David Niven) as they destroyed the German gun emplacements on the tiny Greek island of Navarone. The film then flashes forward to a training camp in England where Mallory and Miller are once again called upon to take on another dangerous assignment.

Mallory and Miller are both promoted to Major and Sergeant, and are to attach themselves onto a unit known as “Force 10”, an American commando unit which is to conduct a sabotage mission against the German forces occupying Yugoslavia. Lt. Col. Mike Barnsby (Harrison Ford) is the commanding officer of Force 10 and is not thrilled with the idea of Mallory and Miller tagging along on their mission. Both Mallory and Barnsby put their differences aside and try to work with one another.

This week’s pick is Richard Attenborough’s A Bridge Too Far (1977) which was based on the Cornelius Ryan novel about the Allied airborne invasion of Holland in September 1944. A Bridge Too Far is a sprawling Hollywood epic, filmed in the same tradition as Ryan’s earlier adaptation The Longest Day (1962) which was based on the D-Day invasion in France. A Bridge Too Far has over thirty of the most acclaimed international stars of the seventies, and even today, as the military and civilian individuals involved in what was known as “Operation Market Garden.”

By September 1944, the German army was in full retreat from France and the low countries (Belgium & The Netherlands) as the allied push from Normandy and Belgium began advancing East towards the German frontier. Due to supply shortages having to be driven from the Normandy beach head, to over five hundred miles away, made the advances come to a screeching halt due to Patton and British General Montgomery needing supplies for both their armies in order for the assault into Germany.

Montgomery proposed an idea to American General Eisenhower (Supreme Commander of the allied expeditionary force in Europe) to invade Holland with over 35,000 paratroopers, and seize a series of bridges over the Rhine, and then advance into Germany to capture industrial factories in the Ruhr, which was the industrial heart of Germany, and where most of their war manufacturing plants were located. Like all battles in the middle of long wars, it was hoped that this bold plan was to end the fighting by Christmas. General Browning (Bogarde) was quoted in a meeting with General Montgomery that they might be going “A bridge too far” with such a plan.