Juggernaut (1974) Juggernaut
Richard Lester's 1974 bomb-disposal thriller, set almost entirely aboard the transatlantic liner SS Britannic in heavy North Atlantic seas. A blackmailer who calls himself "Juggernaut" — later revealed to be retired Royal Navy bomb-disposal man Sidney Buckland (Freddie Jones) — has planted seven barrel bombs aboard and demands £500,000 by dawn. The British government refuses extortion; the Royal Navy drops a bomb-disposal team led by Lt. Cdr. Anthony Fallon (Richard Harris) into the gale. Concurrently in London, Supt. John McCleod (Anthony Hopkins) — whose own wife and children are passengers — works the suspect list backward through ex-disposal men toward Buckland's door. The film cuts between the engine-room defusal, the bridge of the Britannic where Capt. Brunel (Omar Sharif) holds the ship at minimum speed, the social director Curtain (Roy Kinnear) keeping passengers in deck games and bingo, and the Whitehall policy fight over whether to pay.
Pelham-Juggernaut Swimlanes sit nearby in the wiki collection; see The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) for the structural twin from the same year.
Quick facts
| Director | Richard Lester |
| Screenplay | Richard DeKoker (as Richard Alan Simmons) |
| Producer | Richard DeKoker (David Picker, executive) |
| Cinematography | Gerry Fisher |
| Editor | Antony Gibbs |
| Composer | Ken Thorne |
| Cast | Richard Harris (Fallon) · Omar Sharif (Brunel) · David Hemmings (Charlie Braddock) · Anthony Hopkins (McCleod) · Shirley Knight (Barbara Bannister) · Ian Holm (Nicholas Porter) · Clifton James (Mr. Corrigan) · Roy Kinnear (Curtain) · Freddie Jones (Buckland / "Juggernaut") |
| Running time | 109 min |
| Vessel | TS Hamburg (as the Britannic) |
| Released | 26 September 1974 (UK) |
See also
- Index of pages
- Plot Structure (Juggernaut)
- Backbeats (Juggernaut)