History Film / TheWildGeese

* CigarChomper: Fynn.

[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/wildgeese_8598.jpg]]

* AdaptationNationality: Janders was American in the book.

* DrillSergeantNasty: Sergeant-Major Sandy Young.

* KnightInSourArmor: Rafer Janders. Janders became a mercenary because he wanted to choose the wars he believed in - however, after fighting for so many "freedom fighters" who mutated into dictators just as tyrannical as the oppressors they deposed the moment they sat in the president's chair, he's become dissatisfied. However, the opportunity to help Limbani, an acknowledged good man, allows Janders to rekindle a little of his doused idealism.

* TheMedic: subverted. Despite the fact that he's a rather faaaaaaaaabulous queen, the mercenaries' medic has few qualms with getting stuck into the thick of it, and his self-sacrifice fighting the Simbas helps Limbani to escape recapture at one point.

* RatedMForManly

* TrappedBehindEnemyLines: a textbook case.

* AdaptationalNationalityChange: Janders was American in the book.

Faulkner assembles a company of fifty mercenaries, led by former comrades Sean Fynn (Creator/RogerMoore) and Rafer Janders (Richard Harris), accompanied by Pieter Coetzee (Hardy Kruger) a Boer familiar with the African bush. Parachuting into Zembala after a period training in Swaziland, the mercenaries successfully retrieve Limbani from the prison where he is due to be executed by the dictator in a slick operation that goes off without a hitch - but in the meantime, the wheels of greater machinations are preparing to grind up the mercenaries. Sir Edward Matheson concludes his mining contract with the Zembalan military regime - he now no longer needs Limbani, and if the mercenaries return there is also that distasteful task of paying them that he'd rather not stoop to. He promptly recalls the escape plane, leaving Faulkner and his men stranded hundreds of miles from safety in the depths of Africa, with the Simbas, the deadliest shock troops of the regime's army, closing in... they came for gold, but the Wild Geese now have to struggle for their very survival. There are no pockets in a shroud - but revenge can come from beyond the grave.

This film was also reheated for a 1984 Italian knock-off, ''Code Name: Wild Geese'' (copying the plot of the film and relocating England and Africa to Hong Kong and the Phillipines) and led to an official 1985 sequel, ''Wild Geese II''. Richard Burton was to reprise his role as Allen Faulkner in the sequel but died before shooting began; instead the actor Edward Fox took the role of "Alex Faulkner", Allen's brother. The sequel was derived from another Daniel Carney novel, ''The Square Circle'', and is notable for being directed by Peter Hunt of ''Film/OnHerMajestysSecretService'' and including a late role for Creator/LaurenceOlivier as [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany Rudolf Hess]]... and for being such an unmitigated disastrous flop that it killed Euan Lloyd's producing career.

* CompositeCharacter: Fynn's killing a gangster's son and hiding out above a casino is by Janders in the book.

* ForceFeeding: Fynn makes a gangster's son eat poisoned heroin.

* CigarChomper: Flynn.

* BritishStiffUpperLip: Fulkner and co.'s general attitude.

* GreyandGrayMorality: The film avoids making an argument about who is responsible for the African continent's woes: rather than blaming it all on the West, no-one is entirely without fault in this situation.

* MercyKill: Wounded mercenaries are killed by their comrades, instead of leaving them to be tortured to death by the Simbas. In the dramatic climax to the film, Faulkner also kills his friend Janders, who dies crying his son Emile's name.
* OldSoldier: all of the main cast, to an extent - the mercenary force is composed of Army veterans.
* PostClimaxConfrontation: After escaping from Zembala and touching down to cheering crowds in Rhodesia with ths score swelling in the background, you might expect the credits to start to roll: but there's a further reel where Faulkner returns to England to exact revenge on the traitorous Matheson.

* PrivateMilitaryContractor: the mercenaries in the film are "soldiers of fortune" rather than a "corporate army". All of them join the venture as individuals, and give the impression of being adventurers more than employees.

* TheMedic: subverted. Despite the fact that he's a rather faaaaaaaaabulous queen, the mercenaries' medic has few qualms with getting stuck into the thick of it, and his self-sacrifice fighting the Simbas helps Limbani to escape recapture at one point.
** And he is faaaaaaaaaabulous to the end.

** Averted in the book. The mercenaries are still left behind, but Matheson has nothing to do with it.

** This is averted in the book, where Matheson is quite well-spoken when dealing with Faulkner.

Faulkner assembles a company of fifty mercenaries, led by former comrades Sean Fynn (RogerMoore) and Rafer Janders (Richard Harris), accompanied by Pieter Coetzee (Hardy Kruger) a Boer familiar with the African bush. Parachuting into Zembala after a period training in Swaziland, the mercenaries successfully retrieve Limbani from the prison where he is due to be executed by the dictator in a slick operation that goes off without a hitch - but in the meantime, the wheels of greater machinations are preparing to grind up the mercenaries. Sir Edward Matheson concludes his mining contract with the Zembalan military regime - he now no longer needs Limbani, and if the mercenaries return there is also that distasteful task of paying them that he'd rather not stoop to. He promptly recalls the escape plane, leaving Faulkner and his men stranded hundreds of miles from safety in the depths of Africa, with the Simbas, the deadliest shock troops of the regime's army, closing in... they came for gold, but the Wild Geese now have to struggle for their very survival. There are no pockets in a shroud - but revenge can come from beyond the grave.

This film was also reheated for a 1984 Italian knock-off, ''Code Name: Wild Geese'' (copying the plot of the film and relocating England and Africa to Hong Kong and the Phillipines) and led to an official 1985 sequel, ''Wild Geese II''. Richard Burton was to reprise his role as Allen Faulkner in the sequel but died before shooting began; instead the actor Edward Fox took the role of "Alex Faulkner", Allen's brother. The sequel was derived from another Daniel Carney novel, ''The Square Circle'', and is notable for being directed by Peter Hunt of ''Film/OnHerMajestysSecretService'' and including a late role for Creator/LaurenceOlivier as [[NaziGermany Rudolf Hess]]... and for being such an unmitigated disastrous flop that it killed Euan Lloyd's producing career.

Allen Faulkner (RichardBurton) is a retired British Army colonel now making his trade as a mercenary. He is recruited by the magnate Sir Edward Matheson (Stewart Granger) to lead an operation into the fictional African nation of Zembala to rescue President Julius Limbani (Winston Ntshona), a good leader - all too rare in postcolonial Africa - who has been overthrown by a military coup d'etat. Limbani is still highly regarded by the people of Zembala and Matheson aims to use the threat of his return as a bargaining chip to negotiate favourable mining contracts with the new regime. Chief of the minerals is copper, the taste of blood...

The film was an international success, being the fourteenth-highest grossing film of 1978, and might have been placed higher had the collapse of its regional distributor Allied Artists not prevented its penetration of America. ''The Wild Geese'' attracted controversy for being filmed in apartheid-era South Africa, with sizeable demonstrations accompanying its London premiere accusing it of racism - this is despite the fact that the film was very popular amongst black South Africans (producer Euan Lloyd even distributed copies of the ''Soweto Times'' detailing packed-out cinemas to protestors in an attempt to calm them) and the film bore an even-handed message of reconciliation acknowledging the crimes perpetrated by both whites and blacks in Africa (Limbani says to Coetzee at one point "we have to forgive you for the past, just as you have to forgive us for the present").

This film was also reheated for a 1984 Italian knock-off, ''Code Name: Wild Geese'' (copying the plot of the film and relocating England and Africa to Hong Kong and the Phillipines) and led to an official 1985 sequel, ''Wild Geese II''. Richard Burton was to reprise his role as Allen Faulkner in the sequel but died before shooting began; instead the actor Edward Fox took the role of "Alex Faulkner", Allen's brother. The sequel was derived from another Daniel Carney novel, ''The Square Circle'', and is notable for being directed by Peter Hunt of ''[[JamesBond On Her Majesty's Secret Service]]'' and including a late role for LaurenceOlivier as [[NaziGermany Rudolf Hess]]... and for being such an unmitigated disastrous flop that it killed Euan Lloyd's producing career.

* BritishEducationSystem: Janders' son, Emile, is a polite public schoolboy with fine elocution.

The film was an international success, being the fourteenth-highest grossing film of 1978, and might have been placed higher had the collapse of its regional distributor Allied Artists not prevented its penetration of America. ''The Wild Geese'' attracted controversy for being filmed in apartheid-era South Africa, with sizeable demonstrations accompanying its London premiere accusing it of racism - this is despite the fact that the film was very popular amongst black South Africans (producer Euan Lloyd even distributed copies of the ''Soweto Times'' detailing packed-out cinemas to protestors in an attempt to calm them) and the film bore an even-handed message of reconciliation acknowledging the crimes prepetrated by both whites and blacks in Africa (Limbani says to Coetzee at one point "we have to forgive you for the past, just as you have to forgive us for the present"). Perhaps the very fact that it was even-handed was what annoyed the protestors, but that's a topic for another website.

This film was also reheated for a 1984 Italian knock-off, ''Code Name: Wild Geese'' (copying the plot of the film and relocating England and Africa to Hong Kong and the Phillipines) and led to an official 1985 sequel, ''Wild Geese II''. Richard Burton was to reprise his role as Allen Faulkner in the sequel but died before shooting began; instead the actor Edward Fox took the role of "Alex Faulkner", Allen's brother. The sequel was derived from another Daniel Carney novel, ''The Square Circle'', and is notable for being directed by Peter Hunt of ''[[JamesBond On Her Majesty's Secret Service]]'' and including a late role for LaurenceOlivier as [[NaziGermany Rudolf Hess]]... and for being such an unmitigated disastrous flop that it killed Euan Lloyd's producing career. It shouldn't, however, detract from the quality of the original, which remains one of the classics of the war genre.

* AnimatedCreditsOpening: One fly in the film's ointment, a badly-misjudged attempt to ape the Bond movies with some interminable [[TitleThemeTune witless and tuneless warbling]] from JoanArmatrading.

* BandOfBrothers: Even though they're supposedly in this for sordid coin, there is still a fraternal unity to the mercenaries. Many do it out of sheer boredom with civvy street, or a powerful sense of ''espirit de corps'' with old comrades, as much as the financial reward - at one point where Faulkner offers his Sergeant-Major an opportunity to take his money and go home, the Sergeant-Major angrily rejects it, considering not accompanying the men he's trained to be an insult. Once the mission is over, a survivor asks Faulkner, "what was it all for, sir?" - as though the money was merely incidental to taking part. The mercenaries also fight wearing the cap-badges of their old Army regiments.
* BittersweetEnding: The villainous Matheson is killed in the denouement, but it's less a rousing final cheer than a last bitter gasp. Limbani is dead, and so are most of the Wild Geese, including many of Faulkner's friends - their mission achieving little more than nothing. The final scene of the film involves Faulkner meeting Emile; Faulkner promised his father Janders that he would adopt the boy if the latter was killed (as he is, by Faulkner himself - see MercyKill below).

* GreyandGrayMorality: The film avoids making a facile argument about who is responsible for the African continent's woes: rather than blaming it all on the West, no-one is entirely without fault in this situation.

* IrishPriest: In the depths of the African interior you can find Father Geoghagen attending to his parishoners.

-->'''Faulkner''': "You're a remarkable man, Sir Edward. So I suppose I'd better had!"

* KnightinSourArmor: Rafer Janders. Janders became a mercenary because he wanted to choose the wars he believed in - however, after fighting for so many "freedom fighters" who mutated into dictators just as tyrannical as the oppressors they deposed the moment they sat in the president's chair, he's become dissatisfied. However, the opportunity to help Limbani, an acknowledged good man, allows Janders to rekindle a little of his doused idealism.

* FairForItsDay: The portrayal of the outrageously swish medic. In spite of being CampGay almost to the point of parody, he is portrayed as a brave and capable soldier. Even more surprisingly, the other soldiers all seem to know about his sexuality, and not one of them makes a fuss about it. The closest we get to discrimination is him being called a "faggot" once, by the drill sergeant who called another man a "fuckin' abortion" ten seconds earlier.