THE FINAL OPTION aka WHO DARES WINS (UK/Switzerland - 1982; US release 1983) Directed by Ian Sharp. Written by Reginald Rose. Cast: Lewis Collins, Judy Davis, Richard Widmark, Edward Woodward, Robert Webber, Ingrid Pitt, Tony Doyle, John Duttine, Kenneth Griffith, Rosalind Lloyd, Norman Rodway, Paul Freeman, Aharon Ipale, Patrick Allen, Maurice Roeves, Bob Sherman, Albert Fortell, Mark Ryan, Nick Brimble. (R, 125 mins)
Created in 1941 for the duration of WWII and reactivated in 1947, the Special Air Service (SAS) is a Special Forces division of the British Army that enjoyed its height of fame after the six-day Iranian Embassy siege in London from April 30 to May 5, 1980. Globally, the event was overshadowed by the 444-day hostage crisis at the US Embassy in Tehran that began in November 1979 and ended moments after President Ronald Reagan's inauguration in January 1981. But in England, the SAS' swift and precise action after being deployed by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the London incident, where Arab terrorists took over the Iranian embassy to demand the release of Arab prisoners from jails in Khuzestan, brought the SAS into the mainstream, making them Thatcher-era national heroes not unlike the 9/11 first responders in America two decades later. Now involved primarily in counter-terrorism efforts, the SAS' motto has always been "Who Dares Wins," and WHO DARES WINS was the name of the 1982 film inspired by their actions at the Iranian Embassy. Retitled THE FINAL OPTION for its fall 1983 US release from MGM/UA, WHO DARES WINS was the brainchild of producer Euan Lloyd, best known for shepherding the 1978 mercenary classic THE WILD GEESE, a film that was a huge hit everywhere in the world except America, where it was acquired by Allied Artists during their final days on life support. Consequently, the film was a flop in the States, despite being headlined by Richard Burton, Roger Moore, and Richard Harris. Nevertheless, it went on to find an audience on TV, and later, on video and is now regarded as a top action film as well as an influence on such all-star action extravaganzas as THE EXPENDABLES.
THE FINAL OPTION opens with a nuclear disarmament protest march in London, with a member of the militant domestic terror outfit The People's Lobby brutally murdered from a distance with a crossbow arrow through the mouth. The dead man was an undercover government operative who infiltrated the organization and was obviously discovered. SAS administrators Cmdr. Powell (Edward Woodward) and Col. Hadley (Tony Doyle) opt to send in Capt. Peter Skellen (Lewis Collins), going so far as to stage an elaborate, airtight cover that involves him purposely getting booted out of the SAS and, with the help of his handler Ryan (Norman Rodway), posing as someone who's disillusioned and bitter and has an axe to grind with the British government. The cover works for People's Lobby leader Frankie Leith (Judy Davis), who's powerless against Skellen's seductive charms and almost immediately offers to let him move into her place, much to the disapproval of her cohorts Helga (Ingrid Pitt) and Rod (John Duttine). Helga and Rod aren't sold on Skellen or the expertise that he brings as one who knows their enemy, and they follow him to see him having clandestine meetings not just with Ryan but also with his wife Jenny (Lloyd's daughter Rosalind) and their baby daughter. Exposed as a plant, and left on his own once go-between Ryan is offed by Helga, Skellen is forced to tag along with Frankie's half-assed plot to commandeer the home of the US Ambassador to England, where a formal dinner is taking place with US Secretary of State Currie (Richard Widmark) and top-ranking American military official Gen. Potter (Robert Webber) in attendance. Frankie and the People's Lobby have one demand: for the US to detonate a nuclear weapon at the Holy Loch Naval Base in Scotland, a move that she somehow believes will bring about "peace."
Frankie's plan isn't the most logical, but then, neither is most of this film. Davis, in between her breakout debut performance in 1979's MY BRILLIANT CAREER and her Oscar-nominated turn in 1984's A PASSAGE TO INDIA, turns in a committed performance even though she would later denounce the film over its political messaging. When it was released in the UK as a slobbering, shoot 'em up love letter to the SAS, the glorification caused a fair amount of controversy for those opposed to the actions of the SAS and the general culture of Thatcher's England. THE FINAL OPTION was labeled "right-wing propaganda," and there's no denying where its politics lie: the nuclear disarmament crowd is portrayed across-the-board as broad-stroked, frothing-at-the-mouth lunatics; the SAS are largely "shoot first and ask questions later"; Frankie, calm and collected in the early part of the siege, quickly turns emotional and frazzled when she's grilled by Currie, Potter, and a bunch of angry, old American men (Widmark gets the film's best line when he barks "Why don't you hijack a plane? It's more fun. Hell, kids can hijack a dinner!"), and, in its most hysterical and over-the-top plot development, after Skellen and the SAS save the day and blow everyone in The People's Lobby away, a left-wing politico (Paul Freeman) is seen complaining about the level of violence in the raid and questioning why the SAS instigate such an extreme level of national pride just before he meets Malik (Aharon Ipale) for lunch. Malik is seen very early and is established as the key source of funding for The People's Lobby. So here's the end of the film, with the left-wing member of Parliament literally walking arm-in-arm with the primary money man who's bankrolling domestic terror, not just sympathizing with his cause but clearly conspiring with him as both men chuckle over future terrorist plots against England. There's no mistaking the message there: you're either onboard with the actions and the philosophy of the SAS, or you hate England and want to see it burn.
WHO DARES WINS was released in the UK in the summer of 1982, and it would be over a year later before MGM/UA released it in the US in September 1983 as THE FINAL OPTION. Perhaps MGM felt that the action and the notoriety of the two Iran-related hostage situations would trump the sections of British politics that many potential American moviegoers likely didn't follow too closely. While the film certainly delivers on the action in the climax--with the SAS raiding the US Ambassador's house in a relentless, ferocious barrage of explosions, grenades, splattery squibs, shoulder-rolls, Skellen going on a Rambo-esque rampage against the People's Lobby stooges shortly before anyone knew who Rambo was; and even several shots from the through-the-helmet POV of an SAS officer that presciently foresees later first-person shooter video games, all propelled by Roy Budd's catchy, waka-jawaka-tinged score--it nevertheless bombed in US theaters, opening in 12th place with $750,000. To put that in perspective, FLASHDANCE landed in seventh place that same weekend, grossing $1.4 million in its 23rd week of release. THE FINAL OPTION made a quick turnaround to VHS and cable, where it developed a cult following through seemingly constant airings on HBO throughout the '80s. While the film didn't catch on in America during its brief theatrical run, it did manage to find one unexpected fan who got a special screening at his residence arranged by producer Lloyd and cited it as the most realistic depiction of a terrorist situation and a counter-terrorism response that he'd ever seen on the big screen. Who was this FINAL OPTION superfan? President Reagan.
Regardless of your political leanings (if this were released today, it would be a Fox News wet dream), THE FINAL OPTION is a solid action thriller, especially in its nail-biting climactic rescue sequence, which even the film's detractors will usually reluctantly admit is brilliantly-handled by director Ian Sharp, a TV vet who worked on THE PROFESSIONALS and was brought in by Lloyd because he already had a solid working relationship with series co-star Collins. Sharp never distinguished himself beyond this film other than with the acclaimed 1988 Showtime espionage miniseries CODENAME: KYRIL, which reunited him with Woodward, who's sadly underused here. THE FINAL OPTION was originally conceived as a story by journalist and espionage writer George Markstein, best known for writing some early episodes of the 1960s series THE PRISONER. Markstein's outline was commissioned by Lloyd and simultaneously turned into the novel The Tiptoe Boys by James Follett and a script by Oscar-nominated screenwriter Reginald Rose, who honed his skills in the early days of TV drama before writing Sidney Lumet's classic 12 ANGRY MEN (1957). Rose also scripted THE WILD GEESE, and when that became a hit everywhere in the world but America, the same creative team--Lloyd, Rose, star Moore, and director Andrew V. McLaglen (MITCHELL)--reunited in 1980 for the WWII actioner THE SEA WOLVES, another "old guys kicking ass" EXPENDABLES prototype, where the still relatively youthful Moore (then 53) joined forces with 64-year-old Gregory Peck, 70-year-old David Niven, 67-year-old Trevor Howard, and 58-year-old Patrick Macnee. Rose had entered the hired-gun phase of his career by this point, but found a late-career niche with Lloyd, and after WHO DARES WINS/THE FINAL OPTION, they planned a sequel for Collins that would've involved his Capt. Skellen character in the ten-week Falklands War between the UK and Argentina in 1982, but it never materialized. Instead, Lloyd and Rose went to work on WILD GEESE II (1985), directed by Peter Hunt (ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE), and starring Scott Glenn, Barbara Carrera, Laurence Olivier, and Edward Fox, a last-minute replacement for Richard Burton, who died shortly before filming began. The film flopped in the UK and was barely released in the US, and Lloyd retired from the movie industry. Now 91, Lloyd was most recently heard on a WILD GEESE DVD commentary track with Moore in 2004. Rose scripted the 1987 CBS TV-movie ESCAPE FROM SOBIBOR and took a few freelance gigs before his death in 2002 at 82.
With THE FINAL OPTION, Lloyd didn't go for the geezer adventure approach of THE WILD GEESE and THE SEA WOLVES and instead tried to make a movie star of British TV actor Collins (1946-2013), who was nearing the end of a six-year run on the popular adventure series THE PROFESSIONALS, from AVENGERS creator Brian Clemens. THE FINAL OPTION marked Collins' first starring role in a feature film and for a brief period in 1982, Lewis Colllins almost happened when he auditioned to take over the role of James Bond. After 1981's FOR YOUR EYES ONLY, Roger Moore informed 007 producer Albert R. Broccoli that felt he was getting too old to play Bond and wanted to quit, and the search was on for a replacement. Collins and Ian Ogilvy (who already had experience replacing Moore--he was best known at the time for playing Simon Templar on TV's RETURN OF THE SAINT) were on the short list, and Collins would later say that Broccoli found his presence "too aggressive." Broccoli went with the wild-card pick of none other than American James Brolin, who was cast as 007 and set to star in 1983's OCTOPUSSY until an eleventh-hour deal was struck with Moore, who begrudgingly returned for OCTOPUSSY and 1985's A VIEW TO A KILL before leaving the franchise for good at age 58. Despite WHO DARES WINS' success in the UK and his TV popularity, Collins' career never really picked up after losing out on the 007 role. Having played an SAS officer on THE PROFESSIONALS and in THE FINAL OPTION, Collins was essentially the UK's celebrity face of the Special Air Service, even passing the physical endurance test required to join. For a while, Collins parlayed his SAS persona into steady work in a trilogy of West German/Italian WILD GEESE knockoffs from director Antonio Margheriti and producer Erwin C. Dietrich: CODENAME: WILDGEESE (1984), COMMANDO LEOPARD (1985), and THE COMMANDER (1988). CODENAME was released in the US in 1986 by New World, but the other two never found American distribution. After displaying some convincing action chops in THE FINAL OPTION and still stinging from losing the Bond gig (he frequently called it his biggest career missed opportunity), a wooden Collins doesn't even camouflage his boredom in the Margheriti films and his deflated disappointment over the direction of his career. THE COMMANDER proved to be Collins' final feature film role, and other than co-starring with Michael Caine and Armand Assante in the 1988 CBS TV-movie JACK THE RIPPER, he drifted into increasingly sporadic TV guest spots. He eventually retired from acting in 2002, when he moved his family to Los Angeles and became a 56-year-old college student, enrolling in UCLA to study screenwriting, eventually moving on to create an L.A.-based computer sales and equipment company. He survived a 2008 bout with cancer and was attempting an acting comeback in 2012 when his illness made an aggressive return. He died in November 2013 at the age of 67.
THE FINAL OPTION was recently released on DVD as part of Shout! Factory's latest four-film "Action Adventure Marathon" set, along with I ESCAPED FROM DEVIL'S ISLAND (1973), SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DEVIL (1959), and TREASURE OF THE FOUR CROWNS (1983). They also released it as a double feature Blu-ray with I ESCAPED FROM DEVIL'S ISLAND.
Directed by Robert Aldrich. Written by Ronald M. Cohen and Edward Huebsch. Cast: Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Charles Durning, Roscoe Lee Browne, Joseph Cotten, Melvyn Douglas, Richard Jaeckel, William Marshall, Gerald S. O'Loughlin, Paul Winfield, Burt Young, Charles McGraw, Leif Erickson, William Smith, Morgan Paull, Charles Aidman, Shane Rimmer, Simon Scott, William Hootkins, John Ratzenberger. (R, 144 mins).
SPOILERS discussed throughout
Robert Aldrich's intense post-Vietnam/Cold War/conspiracy nail-biter TWILIGHT'S LAST GLEAMING was a box office flop in 1977 and was quickly shuffled off to a couple of heavily-edited prime-time airings on CBS then ventured into the netherworld of night-owl airings in syndication and a token VHS release in the '80s before largely disappearing altogether. But it's amassed a sizable cult following over the last 35 years and has just been released by Olive Films on Blu-ray and DVD in a new restoration supervised by Bavaria Film Studio, the film's German co-producer. Aldrich (1918-1983), the legendary director of KISS ME DEADLY (1955), WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? (1962), HUSH...HUSH, SWEET CHARLOTTE (1964), THE DIRTY DOZEN (1967), and THE LONGEST YARD (1974) among many others, succeeds not just in making an edge-of-your-seat thriller, but also, amidst some occasionally blustery histrionics of a few cast members, one of the angriest and most cynical films of a decade full of angry and cynical films. And, it's worth mentioning, the strangely fascinating experience of witnessing a few Hollywood old-timers dropping F-bombs.
Set in "the future" of 1981 and filmed completely in Munich, the film opens to the tune of Billy Preston's 1971 version of "My Country Tis of Thee" and has disgraced General Lawrence Dell (Burt Lancaster) escaping from a Montana military prison with three convicts, Willis (Paul Winfield), Augie (Burt Young), and Hoxey (William Smith), and gaining control of Silo 3 at an ICBM facility. Despite Dell's orders to keep it under control, Hoxey starts shooting the few military personnel on duty and is promptly shot by Dell for his trouble. Dell, who helped design the installation and the launch systems and knows them inside and out, contacts General Mackenzie (Richard Widmark) and demands to speak to recently-elected President David Stevens (Charles Durning). Dell gives Stevens his demands: he's going to launch nine nuclear missiles unless he and his associates get $10 million, Air Force One transport to a country of their choosing, and the President going on national television and reading a classified memo that details the true reasons the US got involved in the Vietnam War. The patriotic, socially-conscious Dell is disgusted that so many on both sides died for a war that he insists never had to be fought and was completely fabricated by the US government just to make a point to the Soviet Union that, as one person puts it, "we were capable of inhuman acts" in the name of stopping communism. Dell repeatedly tried to make his views public, but was considered too much of a loose cannon by high-ranking military officials who tried to buy his silence with promotions. When a drunken Dell got involved in a bar fight with a guy who had a weak heart, Mackenzie and others, including Stevens' chief advisor General O'Rourke (Gerald S. O'Loughlin) trumped up a bogus first-degree murder charge and railroaded Dell into a 30-year prison sentence. As Dell explains to Mackenzie, "You sent my memos to the shredder, and when I wouldn't trade what I believed in for a star, you sent me to the shredder."
Aldrich at work on TWILIGHT'S LAST GLEAMING
Aldrich lets the film unfold at a deliberate, methodical pace, rarely rushing or glossing over details. It takes nearly the first hour just to get Silo 3 under the control of Dell and his cohorts and to get the President involved in the matter. Most of the second hour focuses on the President hashing out the situation with his cabinet members and other national security officials. It's here where the film gets interesting. Stevens is an honest, decent man who is revealed to be clearly in over his head as President. Many of his cabinet members--effectively embodied by a number of geriatric actors--represent the old guard politicians of which Stevens is too naive to understand. Durning is guilty of some shameless scenery-chewing on several occasions throughout this film, but he's at his best when he's just glaring in disgust at some of the things he's hearing from smug Secretary of State Renfrew (Joseph Cotten) or the glad-handing CIA chief (Leif Erickson), who shrugs his shoulders and callously explains that "it's a game," and "This is just how it's been since 1945, Mr. President." President Stevens is determined to read this memo on television in order to "open up" to the American people in attempt to heal the still-open wounds of the Vietnam War. But these old men at the table--protectors of "the way it's always been"--can't allow this to happen. They can't allow the American people to know that the Vietnam War was for nothing. Stevens is too earnest, idealistic, trusting, and frankly, not quite ready for prime time to realize what's really going on when it's suggested by the smirking Renfrew--and quickly agreed upon by everyone at the table--that the public cannot be made aware of what's happening at Silo 3 and that he--the President--must go there and talk face-to-face with Dell. Secretary of Defense Guthrie (Melvyn Douglas), the one man at the table who doesn't come off like a callous, out-of-touch asshole, half-heartedly offers to go in the President's place, but instead, Stevens entrusts him to read the memo on television in two weeks if anything happens to him in Montana. Also advising the President is General Crane (Charles McGraw), who first gives Mackenzie the go-ahead to send in a four-man team (which includes John Ratzenberger!) to stop Dell by detonating a small atomic device inside Silo 3, and after that fails, Mackenzie positions snipers outside the base to take out Dell and the escaped cons when they exit with the President.
The film is played completely serious, but some of these old men advising Stevens come off a lot like the inhabitants of DR. STRANGELOVE's War Room 20 or so years later. Both Stevens and Dell are too blinded by ideals and morals to see how the world they're in really operates. Stevens doesn't even recognize the corruption around him. Dell is at least aware of it, but thinks Stevens can help him defeat it. Even after he's been buried by the country he spent his life serving, Dell still thinks a visit from Stevens legitimizes his actions and means the world will finally hear his message. And Stevens is so outraged by a political pissing match taking priority over people that he actually comes to admire Dell's convictions. Willis sees through the plan to send Stevens ("They ain't givin' up that gig! And the President is expendable!") and takes no sides, having only gotten involved for the $10 million ("Grow up, General. Nobody honors nothin', but that's no reason to blow up the whole world"). The rage is hammered home by a closing credits reprise of the Preston tune that takes on an entirely new significance after the President learns too late that a man's word of honor doesn't mean much anymore. Aldrich really cranks the tension by letting large sections of the film play out in anywhere from two to four split screens, watching all of the involved parties for extended periods of time. Aldrich would make a few more movies before his death in 1983, but as his daughter Adell explains in the accompanying 70-minute documentary ALDRICH OVER MUNICH, this was the last of his films that he considered personal and important, the last of his films that made a statement. And what a statement it is. Like many films of the 1970s, TWILIGHT'S LAST GLEAMING probably couldn't be made today, at least not without an incredible amount of controversy. Can you imagine a current film where members of a whistleblowing President's cabinet essentially send him to his own execution? Maybe 1977 audiences weren't ready for it either, although its commercial failure is probably due more to lackluster handling by a soon-to-be-defunct Allied Artists. But in a time of great turmoil from the years of American involvement in Vietnam, films like TAXI DRIVER, COMING HOME, and THE DEER HUNTER addressed that pain and trauma in ways that have made them classics that stand the test of time. TWILIGHT'S LAST GLEAMING raged just as loudly as those other films, and what set it apart was its unique cast of actors more suited for a WWII drama.
Durning's performance probably could've been a little more controlled (he's much better in the President's more reflective moments), though there's certainly an argument to be made that his outbursts and tantrums are indicative of the character's inability to handle what's happening. But almost everyone is top-notch here. Lancaster is great, and the film gives the venerable Cotten, by that time largely reduced to cameos in disreputable Euroschlock, his best late-career role. Widmark delivers some vintage grumpy Widmark, making his entrance in the back of a limo where the driver is listening to the news on the radio and asks "Do you care about the news, General?" to which Widmark's Mackenzie grumbles "Never between wars." A couple of minor gripes: a shot of the President shaving by a bathroom window doesn't really ring true from a security standpoint. And several exterior shots of the installation housing Silo 3 are obvious miniatures that would barely pass in a GODZILLA movie.
Olive's Blu-ray presents the film in a spiffy new HD transfer in its 1.85:1 aspect ratio that looks very nice. The lone extra is the 70-minute retrospective ALDRICH OVER MUNICH, which features interviews with numerous behind the scenes personnel (with much input by German assistant director Wolfgang Glattes), and Aldrich's daughter Adell. O'Loughlin, now 84, is the only cast member present. There's plenty of anecdotes and vintage on-set photos and it's a must-see for any fan of the film. TWILIGHT'S LAST GLEAMING is one of those films that's remembered vividly by everyone who's seen it, with its primary obstacle being that nobody's seen it. This new Blu-ray/DVD release should go far in rescuing this unsung classic of 1970s cinema from years of obscurity.
