By
Hank Reineke
There are times I wish my failing memory could serve me
better, and here’s one example. I have a
vague memory of staying up one night – circa 1980, I guess - to catch Roger
Moore on one of those late night talk-shows. I was a huge James Bond fan and, as such, always desperate to mine any
news, no matter how trivial, on any upcoming oo7 adventure. This was, of course, in the pre-internet era
when insider information was relatively scarce outside of a morsel or two
shared in fanzine or with a subscription to Variety. (As an aside, today I often wish there was less information available when a film
is still in still production). In any
event, don’t recall if Moore shared any information that night on the next
scheduled Bond opus For Your Eyes Only
(1981). I do clearly recall him
discussing Andrew V. McLaglen’s ffolkes
(better known in the United Kingdom, where the film was originally released, as
North Sea Hijack).
In this new suspense-thriller Moore shared he would
co-star with actors James Mason and Anthony Perkins. That night Moore attempted a small joke,
first noting – factually - that the film was based on a Jack Davies novel
titled Esther, Ruth and Jennifer. He explained that Universal had – perhaps understandably
- balked on putting the film out under that title. This original title was, to be fair, a film publicist’s
nightmare. The former Saint reasoned
(and I’m paraphrasing here), “Could anyone imagine the promotional posters and newspaper
advertisements: “Roger Moore, James
Mason and Anthony Perkins in Esther, Ruth
and Jennifer?†Well, Moore’s joke
got a laugh that night, anyway. Decades
later Moore would recall in his memoir that Universal actually balked as they
thought the original Davies title sounded “too biblical.†Moore, never one to waste a punchline, would
recall in his memoir, “I’ve yet to come across a Jennifer in the Bible.â€
Whether you prefer the title ffolkes or North Sea Hijack,
the story was, as discussed, based on the Davies’ novel Esther, Ruth and Jennifer (W.H. Allen, 1979, UK). Davies was actually somewhat new to novel
writing, though his earlier novel involving terrorism, Paper Tiger (W.H. Allen, 1974, UK) was subsequently turned into a
film in 1975 film starring David Niven and Toshiro Mifune. Davies seems to have turned to the craft of
writing novels in the latter years of his life, though he had been steadily
employed as a writer during most of his 80 years. He had churned out dozens upon dozens of
screenplays from the mid-1930s through the very end of the 1960s and even a bit
beyond that. As a child I was already
familiar with two of the slapstick comedies he co-penned, though I certainly
wasn’t aware of his contributions at the time. But we of a certain age will certainly recall with fondness Those Magnificent Men in their Flying
Machines (1965) (for which Davies and co-writer Ken Annakin would receive Academy
Award nominations) and Those Daring Young
Men in their Jaunty Jalopies (1969).
Brought onto the project to direct the ffolkes project was Andrew V. McLaglen
who too boasted an impressive resume of directorial duties (having already steered
a dizzying amount of television westerns and contributing to such touchstone
dramas as Perry Mason). He had grown up immersed in the ways of Hollywood’s
film industry. His father, Victor
McLaglen, was a celebrated feature film actor, having long been a favorite casting
choice for the great John Ford. Indeed, McLaglen,
the elder, would go on to win the “Best Actor in a Leading Role†Oscar for Ford’s
1935 film The Informer. McLaglen, the son, would learn nearly every
aspect of the trade from an early age, starting out as an actor but finding
himself more comfortable on the other side of the camera - often working as a
director’s assistant or principal director. Though he had been especially
involved in television work in the 1950s through 1965, he decided to try his
hand at feature filmmaking. He did so
for a decade or more with mostly modest to mixed success.
He returned to television work in the mid-1970s until
1977 when he signed on to direct a number of internationally financed features which
would include the three films for which he is probably best remembered, at
least among devotees of action films: The Wild Geese (1978), ffolkes (1980) and The Sea Wolves (1980). This
trio of old-school filmmaking would, not coincidentally, feature a number of aging
Hollywood stars. These were the actors
who were no longer the hottest of commodities at the box office but were still
well-respected and loved by generations of filmgoers: Richard Burton, Richard
Harris, Stewart Granger, James Mason, Anthony Perkins, and Gregory Peck to name
a few. The connecting thread to all
three of these films was, of course, Roger Moore whose big-screen career had
re-blossomed since the 1972 announcement of his being cast as the new James
Bond.
Moore’s Rufus Excalibur ffolkes was the antithesis to the
womanizing character he was usually tasked to play. An ex-Navy man, the often pompous – and
bearded - ffolkes resided in a small castle just off the coast of Scotland,
(Ireland, in reality). It was there he would
exhaustively train a small hand-chosen band of elite commandos – dubbed “ffolkes
fusiliers†– in the art of counter-terrorism. The hard scotch whiskey-drinking ffolkes professed a distinct chauvinistic
distaste for woman (there’s an offhanded reference such animosity was the
result of a failed marriage). He only
expressed warmth, kindness and tenderness to his pet cats to whom he was doting
and devoted. He also puzzled several colleagues
– as it’s so out of character – when he would, on occasion, pull out a
needlework canvas that he allowed he’d been working on for some “seventeen
years.†When questioned about his
unusual hobby, he coldly responded in his usual misanthropic manner, “It helps
me to think… providing people don’t talk to me.â€
His services are reluctantly activated when the British
government are informed that a band of terrorists, disguised as members of the
international press, have taken control of the Esther, a Norwegian supply ship charged with ferrying parts to two
deep-sea ports-of-call: the drilling rig
Ruth, and the production platform Jennifer, the latter platform of which
sits in the North Sea and produces 300,000 barrels of oil for the UK per
year. When the Esther reaches its destinations, the terrorists subsequently send
in a stealth scuba team to plant limpet mines on the bases of both Ruth and Jennifer. The group’s unhinged
leader, Lou Kramer, played with convincing, unpredictable mania by Anthony
Perkins, is demanding the government pay him – within twenty-four hours - a
ransom of 25 million GBP in five different currencies to not go through with the detonation. The terrorist has assessed that such destruction would bring the economy
to the brink of ruin, cause an environmental catastrophe, and in doing so take
the lives of some seven hundred men working on the platforms.