Nonetheless, after the film's release, Collins was invited to meet the James Bond producer Cubby Broccoli, who was looking for a new 007. "I was in his office for about five minutes, but it was really over for me in seconds," Collins said later. "He's expecting another Connery to walk through the door but there are few of them around. He found me too aggressive." I first met Lewis when I served as a sergeant with 10 Para Recruit Training Wing. It was either Nov 78 or Feb 79 as neither of us could remember. Lew had came to do his Parachute Regiment recruit selection. I was one of his Selection and Training Instructors. With so many then current and future 007 people working on the film, the professionalism is impressive: Maurice Binder (title design), Syd Cain (art direction), Phil Meheux (photography), Gordon McCallum (sound), not to mention the awesome stunt work of Bob Simmons and Stuart St. Paul. Oh, and pretty-boy Lewis Collins was strongly considered as a Roger Moore replacement; probably wouldn't have been too bad (though his running down the hallway at the end of WDW, shirt open, chest hair rippling in the wind was a bit much!).

the real hero in the film is the Scottish actor who plays a fellow solider (of Collins) in the film,who plays it straight and realistic throughout The Special Air Service (SAS) was one of several British special forces units formed in the desert campaign in North Africa during World War II. Unusually, it was also one that had survived into the Cold War era, being reactivated for the Malayan Emergency of 1948-1960. Who Dares Wins is quite a different beast from Euan Lloyd's previous productions, even his last two films, the old geezer war adventures The Wild Geese and The Sea Wolves, despite also being a military-based action film. It's a deliberate attempt to make a more modern, gritty and relevant film, an urban thriller with plenty of swearing and violence for 1982 and, as Ben Elton would say, a little bit of politics.

See also

But Walker still distrust Skellen and has him followed, watched as he meets with his wife to assure her that he's safe and doing what he's been instructed to do. With this evidence in hand Lieth finally worries that Skellen might not be who he claims. She instructs other members of the group to kidnap his wife and daughter and uses their abduction to force him into aiding them in their plot. former secretary1) Terry, her husband and Sally, her daughter. Not forgetting "BILL" Lew's dad. And of course Lew, the main man. This film in addition to the heroic exploit of the British Special Air Service SAS, has very intelligent dialoge which exposes the hypocrisy of certain "pseudo-pacifist" organizations. This film is a definite case study of how radicals can manipulate , shape events to promote their agenda's.

The terrorists' target is the residence of the American ambassador (Don Fellows), where a reception is taking place with a variety of distinguished guests. These include the U.S. Secretary of State (Richard Widmark), the British Foreign Secretary (John Woodnutt) and the head of the U.S. Strategic Air Command, General Ira Potter (Robert Webber). In 1976, the dramatist and television producer Brian Clemens wrote a new British television crime-action drama series entitled The Professionals, modelled on the success of the hit American television series Starsky and Hutch. It was also intended to be a more realistic follow-up to a prior successful television series that he had just produced about government agents entitled The New Avengers. After moving into film acting in the mid-1970s, he intermittently returned to the stage throughout his career. He performed in a pantomime of Babes in the Wood at the King's Theatre in Southsea in Christmas 1983. [16] In the mid-1990s he performed in an English provincial tour of the play Who killed Agatha Christie by Tudor Gates. [17] [18] His last performance in theatre was a 1999–2000 provincial tour in the English Midlands of J.B. Priestley's Dangerous Corner. [19] Move into television [ edit ] At the premiere people protested against the film because it allegedly painted the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament as terrorists. In a 2021 interview, director Ian Sharp said: "This is one of the confusing things (...) In the film the point is that the CND is infiltrated by the terrorists. They are using a legitimate cause for their terrorism. When they are doing their machine gunning practice, they’re using CND symbols to shoot at, to show their contempt. I don’t know how they missed all the signs." In the same interview he conceded: "It’s probably my own fault. It was clear to me, but I misjudged it." [11] Proposed follow-up [ edit ] The story was turned into a screenplay by the American writer Reginald Rose. Rose had written the excellent TV play and film Twelve Angry Men (1957), but he's not exactly on form in Who Dares Wins. The script is not very plausible in its character scenes or in its general conception. The writer also lets a couple of very minor Americanisms slip into the script, but these are hardly worth criticising in the circumstances.His character was never troubled by self-doubt. When asked by a besotted, helpless woman (there were plenty of those in The Professionals) which is Bodie and which Doyle, Bodie replies insouciantly: "Bodie's the incredibly handsome one.""That still doesn't tell me which is which," she says. Our role in 10 Para at the time was if the Russians invaded a Nato Country we were to deploy by Parachute to an area to attempt to delay them for 48 hours so that the rest of the Army could mobilise. That was what Lewis and all of us had volunteered for. To do his bit for this country knowing the risks is a credit to him. Roy Budd and Jerry & Marc Donahue – Commando (Who Dares Wins) Bande Originale du Film (1983, Vinyl)". Discogs. 11 August 1983. Judy Davis was cast on the strength of her performance in My Brilliant Career. She said she did not base her character on Patty Hearst as she felt Hearst was ultimately not serious about politics; she was inspired by Bommi Baumann and his book Terror or love? [14] Filming [ edit ]

It is a side plot, however, that is perhaps the best CT sequence ever caught on film (SPOILER warning ahead!). After Skellen's wife is taken hostage by two members of the terrorist group, undercover SAS members take up station in the next-door house. There, they carefully drill and insert a camera to monitor the situation. Finally, when the time comes, they use a frame charge to blast the wall between the two walls. The power is turned off in the neighboring house, and two SAS troopers dispatch the terrorists using Browning 9mm handguns with flashlights. The scene, which starts with a trooper holding up his silver Browning and releasing the slide forward so the camera gets a good view is classic. Malek is welcomed into the British establishment, not least by his egregious lawyer, who invites him to have dinner with his family. The film's final scene is more alarmist than triumphalist, showing Malek arriving at what appears to be a smart London club to meet a pillar of the British establishment (Paul Freeman) who abhors all this killing of terrorists. The two men link arms while Malek explains that the People's Lobby were just amateurs and that they have plenty of time to cause more chaos and destruction. "All the time in the world" he says, and the film climaxes with a rousing rendition of The Red Flag, followed by the end credits.

After The Professionals concluded, Collins went on to play several relatively minor TV roles – including a sheriff of Nottingham in Robin of Sherwood (1986), and Colonel Mustard in six episodes of a British TV game-show adaptation of Cluedo (1991-92). But he was never able to match his success in The Professionals and in later years lived quietly with his family in Los Angeles. Collins' final acting performance was in an episode of the British television police drama series The Bill entitled "034" in 2002. [31] Final years [ edit ] The finale draws heavily on the Iranian Embassy siege and there is even a scene where one of the SAS troopers catches on fire as he tries to get through the window, an incident from the real siege. The director also gets some nifty POV shots through the SAS soldiers' gas masks, years before anyone had even heard of a First Person Shooter.