Force 10 From Navorone
Nice follow on fron The Guns of Navarone. Good choice of actors to replace Gregory Peck & David Niven.The inclusion of Harison Ford was a ++.Good action movie.

Not quite original, not quite a sequel....
1978's "Force 10 From Navarone" is based on the novel of the same name by famed storyteller Alistair MacLean, who wrote it as a sequel to his superb best-selling novel, "The Guns of Navarone", which had been made into a 1961 Academy Award-winning movie by Director Carl Foreman.

"Force 10 From Navarone" is a perfectly adequate action movie with a better than average cast headed by Robert Shaw and Harrison Ford, as directed by Guy Hamilton, a veteran of the James Bond movies. Its title, unfortunately, invites unequal comparisons with the earlier novels and movie.

The plot involves a mission by an Allied commando team, played by Harrison Ford, Robert Shaw, and Edward Fox, who replicate the roles played respectively by Gregory Peck, Anthony Quinn, and David Niven in the original "Guns". Their mission is to infiltrate Nazi-held Yugoslavia, navigate through the treacherous partisan underground, and destroy a key dam. In the movie, they are accompanied by a collection of misfit soldiers, most notably Carl Weathers of "Rocky" fame.

MacLean's plot in the original "Force 10" was difficult to follow through its convoluted sequence of cover stories and betrayals. In the movie, the plot descends into incoherence; viewers are recommended to sit back and enjoy the action sequences, the highlight of which may be the actual attack on the dam. The script is serviceable in advancing the movie, although it misses many opportunities to take advantage of the excellent and sardonic dialogue of the novel

Harrison Ford and Robert Shaw make a passable buddy team with some resemblance to the remarkable partnership between Keith Mallory and Andrea Stavros that sustained the two "Navarone" novels. Edward Fox is actually a better fit to the Corporal Miller character of the two novels,and carries his role off with his usual style. Richard Kiel and Barbara Bach add local color as members of the partisan organizations.

Viewers coming to this movie without experience of the novels and the original "Guns of Navarone" will find this entertaining fun despite the muddled plot. Fans of Alistair MacLean's novels and of the original "Guns" may find this adaption of "Force 10 From Navarone" confusing and less satisfying.

Better than I remember it!
You know, when I first saw this movie many years ago, I was so disappointed - it was such a lame exercise in low quality film making after the superb Guns of Navarone.
However, watching it now, and trying to divorce it from any connection with the original, it really is a much better film than I gave it credit for.
The most obvious difference is that this restored version really does change the whole quality of the transfer, making the scenery stand out the way it should. The widescreen presentation really makes a huge difference over the pan and scan TV version.
But the whole `boys own' adventure nature of the movie is more fun than I remember it too.. and that is the crux of it really - the movie is intended not to be any deep character study, but to capture some of the fun of Maclean's novel. Sure, there is no Gregory Peck and he is keenly missed, but Robert Shaw is great casting as the laconic hero of the novel, and who can forget him delivering that last line as the camera pans back at the end of the movie, when you think all has been accomplished?
Edward Fox is a little grating as a Niven replacement, but really the casting reaches absurdity with Carl Weathers - he might have been popular back in the 80's, but now he looks incredibly out of place in this sort of movie. Harrison Ford looking spookily young, plays his part straight and true, if uninspired, and as if that was not enough we have the always excellent Franco Nero as the ? bad guy, and Barbara Bach as a Partisan member - although it's something of a stretch to believe that they had such beautiful Partisan members getting down and dirty with the fighting while keeping that long hair immaculate, but its all part of the necessary suspension of belief required to get into the spirit of the movie.
No, it's not a classic, but its darn good boys own fun. Well worth a budget purchase for a Saturday afternoon.

Terrible Movie
It's hard to believe that great actors like Harrison Ford & Robert Shaw can't save this terrible movie ! One of the worst ever made !
If you want to see a great war film buy "The Guns of Navarone" !!!

One of Harrison Ford's Worst Movies
One of the biggest abortions, in terms of both quality and box office receipts, that Harrison Ford has ever starred in was 1978's Force 10 from Navarone.

This movie was the first big budget production that Ford was in after the success of "Star Wars." It was also the sequel to the popular 1961 flick "The Guns of Navarone." Both movies were based on the novels of the same name by popular action adventure writer Alistair MacLean. However, while "The Guns of Navarone" for the most part followed the original novel, the producers of the sequel decided to trash the novel that it was ostensibly based on and the end result was an ungodly mess.

From beginning to end, Force 10 from Navarone is a series of highly contrived events that are strung together in the mistaken belief that dreck can turn into gold. For instance, instead of just simply sending Force 10 on its mission to Yugoslavia in 1943, the producers of this movie would have you believe that Allied commandos would have to break into an Allied air base and steal an airplane to carry out their mission. Whilst doing so, the commandos pick up a black sergeant (Carl Weathers) who was somehow at the whites-only air base. This proves a problem for Force 10 since special forces need to blend in the countryside and local folks in order to fulfill their mission and having a black guy along for the ride does not help matters any.

Upon arriving in Yugoslavia, the commandos go through a series of improbable events that severely strain the audience's suspension of disbelief. Among other things, this movie made the huge historical error of making the Chetniks supporters of the Nazis. In real life, the Chetniks were the toughest opponents that the Nazis had to fight in Yugoslavia. At the time, the Soviet Union and Communists all over the world carried on propaganda campaigns to the effect that the Chetniks were really on the side of the enemy and that the Partisans of Marshal Tito were the only truly anti-Nazi group of Yugoslavian resistance fighters. Although Allied intelligence always recognized that the Chetniks were on our side, the Communists eventually succeeded in getting Allied politicians to drop support for the Chetniks and unreservedly support the Communist Partisans. In the years since World War II, historians have come to realize that the Chetniks were smeared as being pro-Nazis. Unfortunately, Force 10 from Navarone repeats that smear.

The movie winds up with one of the most ridiculous about-faces in movie history. The commandos decided that they did not have enough explosives to blow up the targeted bridge. Then, they decide that since there's a dam up the river, why not blow it up and cause the bridge to fall over. Only problem is that the dam is much bigger than the bridge, but the producers ignored that little problem. The producers also provided the dam with little German security with the result that the commandos had a ridiculously easy time gaining entry to plant their bombs.

All this is in direct contradiction of the novel. In the book, the mission was from the get go to destroy the bridge by blowing up the dam. Force 10 received supplies dropped from Allied planes and the Allied air forces bombed German forces to distract enemy attention from what Force 10 was up to. Also, the intrepid Greek hero from "The Guns of Navarone," Andrea, was in the novel but he is not in this movie. There is no legitimate reason why the movie could not have followed the book.

Force 10 from Navarone is pure drivel. Watch it only if you enjoy ridiculing stupid movies.