Who Dares Wins (1982)

Director:

Ian Sharp

Writers:

George Markstein (original story outline)
James Follett (book)

Release Date:

26 August 1982 (UK)

Genre:

Action

Tagline:

Who Dares Wins. The Final Option.

Plot:

A trooper with the British Special Air Service (SAS) infiltrates a radical political group who are planning...

Plot Keywords:

Hostage Drama | Strategic Air Command | Terrorist Plot | Nuclear Missile | General

Cast

Lewis Collins	...	Capt. Peter Skellen
Judy Davis	...	Frankie Leith
Richard Widmark	...	Secretary of State Arthur Currie
Edward Woodward	...	Commander Powell
Robert Webber	...	General Ira Potter
Tony Doyle	...	Colonel Hadley
John Duttine	...	Rod Walker
Kenneth Griffith	...	Bishop Crick
Rosalind Lloyd	...	Jenny Skellen
Ingrid Pitt	...	Helga
Norman Rodway	...	Ryan
Maurice Roëves	...	Maj. Steele (as Maurice Röeves)
Bob Sherman	...	Hagen
Albert Fortell	...	Freund
Mark Ryan	...	Mac

Also Known As:

The Final Option (USA)

Runtime:

125 min

Country:

UK | Switzerland

Language:

English

Colour:

Colour

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:16 | Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | Norway:18 | UK:18 | USA:R | West Germany:18 | UK:AA (original rating)

Filming Locations:

Heatherden Hall, Pinewood Studios, Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, England, UK

Company:

Richmond Light Horse Productions

Trivia:

Producer Euan Lloyd lived near the Iranian Embassy in 1980. On 30 April, six terrorists took over the embassy holding several hostages. When he was at home watching a John Wayne film on the evening of 5 May, it suddenly switched to the live news coverage of the SAS storming the building to end the siege. Lloyd immediately ran outside round the corner to watch the action himself. As soon as it had ended, he ran back to his house and immediately phoned his lawyer to register several movie titles for a possible film on the SAS, one of which was "Who Dares Wins".

Goofs:

When Peter Skellen arrives home in his car with gifts for his wife and child, the child's present is clearly a box shape however once inside the house its clearly a wrapped present.

Quotes:

Capt. Peter Skellen: I know more about nuclear devastation than you ever will.

Soundtrack:

Jenny's Theme

Good fun

This excellent film was obviously inspired by the Iranian embassy siege 2 years earlier, but despite this it comes across as a feature length episode of the TV series The Professionals - probably because so many of the same team worked on it. Lewis Collins performs well as Skellen and despite some hammy performances elsewhere this is a fairly intense film. The script seems painfully slow nowadays and takes a long time to get going but when it does it rates highly. The seige of Skellen's house is well-handled and the fight between Rosalind Lloyd and Ingrid Pitt is perhaps the best scene in the movie. The SAS storming of the embassy is ultimately the reason for the film's existence and it is very exciting. On the basis of this movie Lewis Collins would have made a very good James Bond but sadly it was not to happen..unfortunately it was all downhill from here.