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:

Lt. Cmdr. Anthony Fallon: May you inherit the earth.
Charlie Braddock: Yeah, six feet of it, I think.

Movie Connections:

References A Night to Remember (1958)

An enjoyable watch

It is New Years' Eve and six bombs are found on-board passenger cruiser BRITTANIC, below and above sea level. The anonymous perpetrator demands 500,000 pounds (a suspiciously low sum even in 1974.) Facing choppy seas and 'force 8 winds,' the crew are unable to unload passengers into life-rafts or rescue vessels, and so a team of bomb-disposal experts are flown in.

JUGGERNAUT is a well-paced film and can boast an all-star cast. Richard Harris plays the chief expert as a world-weary drinker who been in the job too long and faced imminent death so many times that he has lost all pretence for morality. David Hemmings has a smaller role as his assistant. A younger - but still grey haired - Anthony Hopkins heads the landside manhunt for the bomber. Ian Holm puts in a lovely performance as the compassionate head of the shipping company, who insists upon paying the ransom, even as the hard-on-terrorists British government threatens to withdraw its generous tax subsidies. Michael Hordern has a cameo, as too does Julian Glover. Rounding off the cast is an understated Roy Kinnear who plays the bumbling cruise director, offering hapless pleasantries to the passengers as well as falling short of a comfort after the bombs presence on board are revealed.

This is a very British film - these is little swearing, no resolute American hero, sandwiches are the meal of choice -offered to the bomb experts and the passengers - who are told relatively early of the threat - take the news with surprising grace, the British upper-lip prevailing over the typical Hollywood hysterier or sentimentality