Juggernaut (1974)

Director:

Richard Lester

Writers:

Alan Plater (additional dialogue)
Richard Alan Simmons (written by)

Release Date:

25 September 1974 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Thriller

Tagline:

Only one man to save 1200 lives! [Richard Harris]

Plot:

Some unknown maniac is threatening a navigation company to blow up one of its luxury transatlantics...

Plot Keywords:

Bomb | Sea | Water | Ship | Extortion

Cast

Richard Harris	...	Lt. Cmdr. Anthony Fallon
Omar Sharif	...	Captain Alex Brunel
David Hemmings	...	Charlie Braddock
Anthony Hopkins	...	Supt. John McCleod
Shirley Knight	...	Barbara Banister
Ian Holm	...	Nicholas Porter
Clifton James	...	Corrigan
Roy Kinnear	...	Social Director Curtain
Caroline Mortimer	...	Susan McCleod
Mark Burns	...	Hollingworth
John Stride	...	Hughes
Freddie Jones	...	Sidney Buckland
Julian Glover	...	Commander Marder
Jack Watson	...	Chief Engineer Malicent
Roshan Seth	...	Azad

Also Known As:

Terror on the Britannic (UK) (DVD title) (USA)

Runtime:

109 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:12 | Argentina:13 | Canada:PG (Ontario) | Finland:K-16 | Norway:12 (1975) | Norway:15 | Sweden:11 | USA:PG | Singapore:PG | UK:PG (video rating) | UK:A (original rating)

Filming Locations:

Pinewood Studios, Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, England, UK

Company:

David V. Picker Productions

Trivia:

The film was shot mainly aboard a real ocean liner. The Hamburg had recently been sold by its German owners to the Soviet Union. Before the Soviets took delivery of the liner, they rented it to the film company. The liner was painted in the livery of a fictional shipping line, very similar to the livery used by the Soviet Morpasflot line, and renamed the Britannic. Advertisements were run in British papers, soliciting extras who would take a lengthy cruise in the North Sea 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.

Goofs:

Continuity: The scene where the Indian steward brings tea and toast to the children's and their mother's cabin (immediately after the pot of nails is knocked over in the corridor) he leaves immediately followed by the kids. Instantly outside, the steward is approaching from the far end of the corridor carrying a tray.

Quotes:

Captain Alex Brunel: You have to go back to the bombs.
Lt. Cmdr. Anthony Fallon: Persuade me.
Captain Alex Brunel: Twelve hundred lives.
Lt. Cmdr. Anthony Fallon: Not many lives that... I mean, not in the great scheme of things. Remember what the goldfish said? "There must be a god! I mean, who changes the water?"... Specks in the universe, Captain! Launch your lifeboats.

Movie Connections:

References A Night to Remember (1958)

Thriller? Disaster movie? No, much more.

On the face of it 'Juggernaut' is a fairly small scale nerve-stretcher about an attempt to hold a shipping company to ransom by placing seven very large and very intricately designed bombs in an Atlantic liner. 1200 assorted passengers and crew will go to the bottom if bomb-disposal expert Richard Harris can't outwit the madman responsible for placing the bombs.

So far, so conventional. But compare 'Juggernaut' with another 1974 release, 'The Towering Inferno'. There aren't any macho heroics here: no all-knowing architect and fire-chief to handle the crisis and provide leadership. Nor are there any 'we must never let this happen again' uplifting platitudes at the end.

In 'Juggernaut' we see flawed and desperate people trying to control circumstances over which they have no real power. The company head constantly dithers over paying the ransom or not; the Government representative is a sneering bully who 'won't give in to people like this' (it then turns out the bomber was a Government explosives expert who was given a pitiful reward for a lifetime of courageous work disarming bombs); the bomb-disposal expert has seen death so many times it has lost its meaning for him, it's a human inevitability however it happens, and that's that. Some people feel Roy Kinnear's entertainments officer is a too-obvious attempt at comic relief, but here again we see someone who is supposed to do his best in all circumstances but comes up against the limitations of his personality and is just as afraid as everyone around him.

And the ending? No sense of 'achievement' in having defused the bombs. Good men, friends and colleagues, have been killed. Richard Harris walks alone on deck, smoking his pipe and nursing a drink. What is he thinking? About the men he has lost, or the inevitable next job that may see his own death? Meanwhile, the ship sails on across the eternal sea.

'Juggernaut' is well-acted and well-scripted (with dialogue by Alan Plater). Dick Lester's direction is less top-heavy with stylistic touches than usual, and he has a particularly deft touch in giving the viewer a sense of isolation and claustrophobia as the bombs are dismantled. This film can act as a piece of Sunday-afternoon escapism or something more thought-provoking. Highly recommended.