‘The Wild Geese’ film re-released
Over the years I have received countless emails from around the world about the film ‘The Wild Geese’. Typically, they would read: “One day when I was a boy, my father took me to the cinema to see ‘The Wild Geese’. I decided there and then I wanted to be a soldier, and I have enjoyed a life-long career in the military.”
So the good news is the film has been re-released in cinemas throughout Britain and Ireland in stunning 4K quality. And there’s a book out too – see below.
In the lead role in the film is Richard Burton, yes, the famous Richard Burton, playing a mercenary commander based on Mike Hoare, with three other megastars prominent, namely Roger Moore, Richard Harris and Hardy Kruger.
The other Mike Hoare link to the film is that Mike was the military advisor to the film, which was shot mainly at Tshipise in South Africa in 1977. Oh, and two of Mike’s Congo Wild Geese had parts in the film, namely Tullio Moneta (who went on to play a major role in 1981 in Mike’s attempted coup in the Seychelles) and Ian Yule.
There is a fascinating chapter on Mike’s experience with the stars on set, and later his three-week tour of the USA and Canada to promote the film, in the biography on Mike Hoare (title: ‘Mad Mike’ Hoare: The Legend).
In the film, a team of ageing mercenaries is hired by a wealthy industrialist for one final mission: recruit and train a squad of commandos, parachute into an unstable African nation, snatch its deposed President from a maximum-security prison, escape via the military-controlled airport and massacre anyone who gets in their way.
And in December 2025, a book chronicling the production of the action classic will be launched. Called Fifty Men in the Valley of the Shadow – The Making of The Wild Geese, the 316-page book is written by journalist and film historian Tony Earnshaw.
To buy a printed copy of the Mike Hoare biography or an eBook, go to Amazon, or B2R.
