| The Sea Wolves | |
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Original film poster by Arnaldo Putzu
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| Directed by | Andrew V. McLaglen |
| Produced by | Euan Lloyd |
| Screenplay by | Reginald Rose |
| Based on | Boarding Party 1978 novel by James Leasor |
| Starring | Gregory Peck Roger Moore David Niven Trevor Howard Barbara Kellerman Patrick Macnee |
| Music by | Roy Budd |
| Cinematography | Tony Imi |
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Production
company |
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| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
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Release date
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3 July 1980 |
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Running time
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120 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom United States Switzerland |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $220,181[1] |
The Sea Wolves is a 1980 war film starring Gregory Peck, Roger Moore and David Niven. The Panavision film is based on the book Boarding Party by James Leasor, which itself is based on a real incident which took place in World War II. The incident involved Operation Creek, the Calcutta Light Horse‘s covert attack on 9 March 1943 against a German merchant ship, which had been transmitting information to U-boats from Mormugão Harbour in neutral Portugal’s territory of Goa.
The title music for The Sea Wolves was adapted by Roy Budd from the famous Warsaw Concerto of composer Richard Addinsell. Budd had, at the time, already composed or arranged numerous other film scores, notably those of The Wild Geese and Get Carter. For The Sea Wolves, Budd added lyrics by Leslie Bricusse to his, Budd’s, arrangement of the Warsaw Concerto music, the resulting song being entitled The Precious Moments, sung by the British baritone Matt Monro, who had also sung title tracks for many other films.
The film was originally known as Boarding Party. According to the documentary The Last of the Gentleman Producers, producer Euan Lloyd says that he originally planned to reunite Moore with Wild Geese co-stars Richard Burton and Richard Harris as Pugh and Grice.
Fifty percent of the budget was provided by Lorimar. They fell out with United Artists, their distributor, before the film was delivered. Lorimar subsequently formed a new relationship with Paramount but producer Euan Lloyd thought that studio regarded the film as “the poor cousin” and as a result it “wasn’t sold properly”.
The film reunited much of the cast and crew from 1978’s The Wild Geese, including actors Roger Moore, Kenneth Griffith, Jack Watson, Percy Herbert, Patrick Allen, Brook Williams, Patrick Holt and Terence Longdon, writer Reginald Rose, producer Euan Lloyd, director Andrew V. McLaglen, designer Syd Cain, and composer Roy Budd.
Gregory Peck and David Niven had worked together on the 1961 film The Guns of Navarone, but were excluded from appearing in the 1978 sequel Force 10 from Navarone since it was felt they were too old to convincingly play military veterans. This film made two years later disproved this theory. Incidental music is from the Warsaw Concerto.
Filming took place on location in Goa.
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