Development The film was based on a novel,
The Thin White Line, which Euan Lloyd read prior to publication. He optioned it and hired Reginald Rose to write the screenplay in June 1976. The budget was US$9 million.
United Artists was enthusiastic about the film, but insisted Lloyd give the director's job to
Michael Winner. Lloyd refused and instead chose
Andrew V. McLaglen, son of
Victor McLaglen, a British-born American previously known mainly for making
westerns. Euan Lloyd had a friendship with
John Ford, whom McLaglen remembered as having recommended him to direct the film. This would have been impossible as John Ford died in 1973, years before the novel on which the film was based came into existence. The finance for the film was raised partly by pre-selling it to distributors based on the script and the names of the stars who were set to appear. The African nation in the film is not named, but it is clearly meant to be
Zaire (the modern
Democratic Republic of the Congo). The film's promotional literature made the link clear as
The Wild Geese was promoted at the time as the story of "50 steelhard mercs who undertake a terrifying mission in dangerous, sweltering Central Africa-very much like the Old Congo-to rescue and bring out a deposed and imprisoned black president". The film's villain, General Ndofa, described in the film as an extremely corrupt and brutal leader of a copper-rich nation in central Africa, was a thinly disguised version of President
Mobutu Sese Seko. Likewise, the character of Julius Limbani, the deposed pro-Western leader who was imprisoned following the hijacking of an airliner, was based upon
Moïse Tshombe. Finally, the film's hero, Colonel Allen Faulkner, described as a British mercenary living in South Africa, was based on Colonel
Michael "Mad Mike" Hoare. Like Faulkner, Hoare was a former British Army officer living in South Africa who worked as a mercenary and had been hired to fight for the Tshombe government in the Congo in 1964-1965. Hoare served as the film's "military and technical adviser" and very much approved of the film, which he praised as a realistic depiction of the mercenary sub-culture. Part of the finance came from the Rank Organisation.
Casting Although Lloyd had both Richard Burton and Roger Moore in mind for their respective roles from a relatively early stage, other casting decisions were more difficult. As the mercenaries were mostly composed of military veterans (some of whom had fought under Faulkner's command before), it was necessary to cast a number of older actors and extras into these physically demanding roles. A number of veterans and actual mercenary soldiers appeared in the film.
Northern Irish actor
Stephen Boyd, a close friend of Lloyd's, was originally set to star as Sandy Young, the sergeant major who trains the mercenaries before their mission. However, Boyd died shortly before filming commenced and
Jack Watson was chosen as a late replacement. He had previously played a similar role in McLaglen's 1968 film ''
The Devil's Brigade''. Harris did not know about the arrangement until the end of the shoot. Hardy Krüger was not the first actor considered for the role of Pieter Coetzee. Lloyd originally thought of
Curd Jürgens, but felt that Hardy seemed to fit. Krüger was also impressed by the script scenes played with Limbani. Moore later quipped that "I was the only wild member of the cast. Harris and Burton were on the wagon and Krüger never emerged from his room with his lady". Moore's character was nearly offered to
O. J. Simpson after confusion on the American financier's part regarding the character being described as black Irish. To Lloyd's surprise, Moore told him to cut his character's number of lines because he had no intention of trying to out-perform either Burton or Harris; the character retained his core expositions but became more of a stoic action figure in the final production. Lloyd hesitated before offering the role of Witty, the gay medic, to his longtime friend
Kenneth Griffith. When finally approached, Griffith said "Some of my dearest friends in the world are homosexuals!" and accepted the part. Percy Herbert, who played the role of Keith, was a veteran of World War II, in which he had been wounded in the
defence of Singapore, then captured by the
Imperial Japanese Army and interned in a
POW camp.
Alan Ladd's son David Ladd and
Stanley Baker's son Glyn Baker also had roles in the film. Ladd played the drug-dealing nephew of a London-based mob boss (
Jeff Corey), and Baker played the young mercenary Esposito. With the cast made up from so many veteran actors, Baker claimed that the only reason he stayed alive in the plot so long was that he was one of the few actors young and fit enough to carry President Limbani for any period of time. David Ladd's character's girlfriend in the film was played by
Anna Bergman, the daughter of
Ingmar Bergman. Ian Yule, who played Tosh Donaldson, had been a real mercenary in Africa in the 1960s and 1970s. He was cast locally in South Africa. He then brought his former commanding officer,
Michael "Mad Mike" Hoare, who had led one legion of mercenaries,
5 Commando,
Armée Nationale Congolaise (not to be confused with
5 Commando, the Second World War British Commando force), in the
Congo Crisis of the 1960s, to be the
technical adviser for the film, a role which he shared with Yule.
John Kani played Jesse Blake, a mercenary who had previously served with Faulkner and was struggling to live before the chance to work with Faulkner again. Palitoy based the figure "Tom Stone" (part of the Action Man team) on the character Blake after looking at the pre-production photos and posters of the film. Subsequently, some modifications to the figure were made. Kani made his debut in the film after years of acting and stage performances with
Winston Ntshona. Ntshona was Limbani in the film and continued to make many more films with Kani after
The Wild Geese. Kani and Ntshona say they both turned down roles in the film at first after hearing it would be about mercenaries, only to change their mind after reading the script. As Kani commented: "The film could not come at a better time. We know exactly what is happening in Africa today and a movie that devotes – out of 120 minutes – even three quarters of a minute to say we need each other and to say that a white man can be just as much an African as a black man, that's important".
Rosalind Lloyd, who played Heather, is Euan Lloyd's daughter. Her mother, actress
Jane Hylton, played Mrs Young.
Filming Principal filming took place in South Africa in the summer and autumn of 1977, with additional studio filming at
Twickenham Film Studios in
Middlesex. Roger Moore estimated location filming in Africa took about three months with the unit taking over a health spa near
Tshipise in
Northern Transvaal (now Limpopo); shooting also took place at Messina Border Region. South Africa was subjected to a mandatory arms embargo imposed by the
United Nations Security Council Resolution 418 in 1977. ==Soundtrack==