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The Wind and the Lion

The Wind and the Lion is a 1975 American epic adventure
war film written and directed by John Milius and starring
The Wind and the Lion
Sean Connery, Candice Bergen, Brian Keith, and John Huston.
Made in Panavision and Metrocolor and produced by Herb
Jaffe and Phil Rawlins, the film was loosely based on the real-
life Perdicaris incident of 1904. The film was produced by
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and distributed in the U.S. by United
Artists and internationally by Columbia Pictures.

Contents
Plot
Cast
Inspiration
Production
Reception
Critical response
Awards Pre-release promotional poster

Novel Directed by John Milius

Music Written by John Milius

Home media Produced by Herb Jaffe

See also Starring Sean Connery

References Candice Bergen

External links Brian Keith

John Huston
Cinematography Billy Williams
Plot
Edited by Robert L. Wolfe
During 1904, Morocco is the source of conflict among the Music by Jerry Goldsmith
powers of Germany, France, and the British Empire, each of Production Metro-Goldwyn-
which is trying to establish a sphere of influence in that companies Mayer
country. Mulai Ahmed el Raisuli is the leader of a band of
Herb Jaffe
Berber insurrectionists opposed to the young Sultan Abdelaziz
Productions
and his uncle, the Bashaw (Pasha) of Tangier, whom Raisuli
considers corrupt and beholden to the Europeans. He kidnaps Distributed by United Artists
Eden Pedecaris and her children, William and Jennifer, in a (United States)
raid on their home, during which Sir Joshua Smith, a British
friend of Eden's, is killed. Raisuli then issues an outrageous Columbia
ransom demand, deliberately attempting to provoke an Pictures
international incident in order to embarrass the Sultan and (International)
start a civil war.
Release date May 22, 1975
(New York City)

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In the United States, President Theodore Roosevelt is seeking Running time 119 minutes
re-election. He decides to use the kidnapping as both political Country United States
propaganda (coining the phrase "Pedecaris alive or Raisuli
dead!") and as an effort to demonstrate America's military Language English
strength as a new great power, despite the protests of his Budget $4.5 million[1] or
cautious Secretary of State, John Hay. $4.2 million[2]

The American Consul to Tangier, Samuel Gummeré, is unable Box office $9.2 million
to negotiate a peaceful return of the hostages. In response, (rentals)[3]
Roosevelt sends the South Atlantic Squadron, under the
command of Admiral French Ensor Chadwick, to Tangier, either to retrieve Pedecaris or to force
the Sultan to accede to Raisuli's demands. Roosevelt finds himself gaining more and more respect
for Raisuli, thinking him an honorable man who just happens to be his enemy.

The Pedecarises are kept as hostages in the Rif, far from any potential rescuers. Though her
children seem to admire Raisuli, Eden finds him "a brigand and a lout". The Pedecarises attempt
an escape, helped by one of Raisuli's men, but they are betrayed and given to a gang of desert
brigands. Luckily, Raisuli has tracked them and kills the kidnappers with a rifle and sword. He
reveals that he does not have any intention of harming the Pedecarises and is merely bluffing.
Eden and Raisuli come to develop a friendly relationship as Raisuli reveals his story, that he was
once taken captive by his brother, the Bashaw, and kept in a dungeon for several years.

Gummeré, Chadwick, and his aide, Marine Captain Jerome, tire of the Sultan's perfidy and the
meddling of the European powers. They decide to engage in "military intervention" to force a
negotiation by seizing the actual seat of power, the Bashaw's palace in Tangier. Jerome's company
of Marines, supported by a detachment of sailors, march through the streets of Tangier, much to
the surprise of the European legations, whose forces are with the Sultan at distant Fez. They
overwhelm the Bashaw's palace guard, taking the Bashaw hostage and forcing him to negotiate.

Under coercion, the Bashaw finally agrees to accede to the Raisuli's demands. But during a hostage
exchange, Raisuli is betrayed and captured by German and Moroccan troops under the command
of von Roerkel, while Jerome and a small contingent of Marines are present to secure the
Pedecarises. While Raisuli's friend, the Sherif of Wazan, organizes the Berber tribe for an attack on
the Europeans and Moroccans, Eden attacks Jerome. She convinces him and his men to rescue
Raisuli to uphold the word of President Roosevelt that he will be unharmed if the Pedecaris family
are returned safely.

A three-way battle results, in which the Berbers and Americans team up to defeat the Germans and
their Moroccan allies, rescuing Raisuli in the process. In the United States, Roosevelt is cheered
for this great victory, and the Pedecarises arrive safely back in Tangier. Roosevelt reads a letter he
received from Raisuli, comparing the two men: "I (Raisuli), like the lion, must remain in my place,
while you, like the wind, will never know yours".

Cast
Sean Connery as the Raisuli
Candice Bergen as Eden Pedecaris (based upon Ion Perdicaris)
Brian Keith as President Theodore Roosevelt
John Huston as Secretary of State John Hay
Geoffrey Lewis as Samuel R. Gummeré
Vladek Sheybal as the Bashaw of Tangier
Steve Kanaly as Captain Jerome (based upon John Twiggs Myers)
Roy Jenson as Admiral Chadwick
Nadim Sawalha as the Sherif of Wazan
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Darrell Fetty as Vice-Consul Richard Dreighton

Marc Zuber as Sultan Abdelaziz
Antoine Saint-John as Von Roerkel
Simon Harrison as William Pedecaris
Polly Gottesman as Jennifer Pedecaris
Deborah Baxter as Alice Roosevelt
Jack Cooley as Quentin Roosevelt
Chris Aller as Kermit Roosevelt
Aldo Sambrell as Ugly Arab
Luis Barboo as Gayaan the Terrible
Billy Williams as Sir Joshua Smith
Shirley Rothman as Edith Roosevelt
Rusty Cox as Marine Sergeant
Larry Cross as Senator Henry Cabot Lodge
Alexander Weldon as Elihu Root, Secretary of War
Dr. Akio Mitamura as Japanese Ambassador
Bill Linnehan as President's Aide
Audrey San Felix as Miss Hitchcock
Ben Tatar as Sketch Artist
Michel Damian as President's Secretary
John Milius as the One-armed military advisor

Inspiration
Milius stated both in interviews and the DVD commentary that he was consciously echoing a
number of classic adventure films and stories. He cites the famous British periodical Boy's Own, as
well as the stories of Rudyard Kipling, as inspirations for the film. Milius' inspiration had come
from reading an article by Barbara W. Tuchman about the Perdicaris incident in American
Heritage magazine,[4] and he found the story fascinating; he decided to adapt it into a screenplay
once he figured how to make the story more cinematic, by making Ion Perdicaris a woman, Eden
Pedecaris.

Milius also researched Rosita Forbes's 1924 biography of Raisuli, The Sultan of the Mountains;
much of the film's dialogue is appropriated almost word-for-word from Forbes's book. Walter
Harris's 1921 book Morocco That Was inspired the depiction of Sultan Abdelaziz's court.[5] Milius
took similar care in researching the scenes with Theodore Roosevelt.

Milius says he originally wanted Mrs. Pedecaris to be 55 or 60 and played by Katharine Hepburn
with the children being her grandchildren, and the Berber would be a similar age. "Her husband
has died years ago, she's a stern, rich old woman, and she has a last romantic fling with this stern,
rich old Berber, the Sultan of the mountains, who can't really do all the things he used to do but
pulls it together one more time to save her from the Blue People. A very heroic character. And of
course the children would look at such a character as being even greater than Sean Connery – this
old man would be the greatest old thing they'd ever seen, and they'd have great admiration for
their grandmother for standing up to him, the way old people can snipe at each other and love
each other because they have the common bond of age. That was the purest form the movie ever
had. Roosevelt was a very young, visceral presence, a vibrant man who represented a new world,
who understood Raisuli's world very well but was forced to change it".[6]

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Milius had to make the leading characters younger to get the film financed. "No one wanted to
make a movie about Arabs and Teddy Roosevelt. So we had to make concessions: a more romantic
male, a beautiful woman, much more box office that way. You make these concessions as you go
along and perhaps, at a certain point in your career, you don't have to make them, and you make
Barry Lyndon. Maybe it's better that you make concessions".[6]

Milius said the film was a "boy's adventure movie ... seen through children's eyes ... I'm sick of
seeing children used as a point of view when they're sitting there blanching with terror".[7]

1930s adventure films like Gunga Din and The Four Feathers provided inspiration for the film's
style and storytelling technique. The use of children as protagonists is also inspired by the book
and the film A High Wind in Jamaica, while the relationship between Raisuli and Eden is based
on the 1921 film The Sheik. Raisuli's rescue of the Pedecarises on the beach is similar to another
mounted sword-fighting scene in Akira Kurosawa's 1958 film The Hidden Fortress, and the scene
of Jennifer Pedecaris being cornered by Aldo Sambrell's character and kidnapped is a reference to
the 1956 film The Searchers.

Most noticeably, the film inherits a cavalier attitude towards imperialism, foreign policy, and
military intervention, attitudes which were relatively unpopular in 1975 America at the end of the
Vietnam War. Milius' apparent endorsement of imperialism was not attacked by critics, perhaps
due to the film's subtle satiric manner and for the accurate recreation of the era in which its story
is set.

"I think people should take home more understanding – or rather awareness – of what I think is
the American character", said Milius. "It's very well put in the grizzly bear. I don't think Americans
are necessarily civilised or too calm and rational about their approach to life. I rather like that. I
really like grizzly bears too. I like grizzly bears a lot more than most people ... You can take the
[film's] politics to be anyway you want, for or against the United States".[7]

Milius also had inspiration from more recent films while making the film. He based the film's
cinematography, use of desert landscapes, and filming of battle scenes on David Lean's 1962 film
Lawrence of Arabia, also using many of the same sets, including the "Aqaba" set which had been
constructed for Lean's film, here serving as the setting for the final, three-way battle between the
Berbers, the Europeans and their Moroccan allies, and the Americans. The Bashaw's palace was
the Palace of the Americas in Seville, having appeared in both Lawrence of Arabia and Anthony
Mann's 1961 film El Cid. Another major influence is the 1969 film The Wild Bunch, which inspired
the final confrontation between the American and German troops and the earlier scene where the
Sultan test-fires his Maxim gun.

Production
The film was a co production between MGM, then under the control of Daniel Melnick, and
Columbia Pictures, then run by Peter Guber. It was produced by Herb Jaffe making his first film as
an independent after five years as head of production at United Artists.

Milius originally wanted Omar Sharif to play Raisuli and Faye Dunaway to play Eden Perdicaris,[8]
but Sharif refused the part and Dunaway became ill due to exhaustion, having to be replaced at
short notice by Bergen. Anthony Quinn was also considered for Raisuli. Milius said he wrote the
part of Eden with Julie Christie in mind, although she may not have actually been approached for
the role.

Milius wanted Orson Welles to play newspaper magnate "Charles Foster Kane" (the name of his
character in Citizen Kane) in the film, but the studio would not let him as they were worried about
being sued by RKO. Instead, he used the character of William Randolph Hearst.[9]

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Filming was done in Spain, with the towns of Seville, Granada, Almería, and Madrid all doubling
for Tangier and Fez, and the "Washington" scenes being filmed in and around Madrid. For the
deserts of Morocco, Milius used many locations in the Almería region, some of which had been
previously used in historical epics such as Lawrence of Arabia and El Cid, as well as several
Spaghetti Westerns; Milius claims to have discovered the beach where Raisuli rescues the
Perdicaris family after their escape. The scene at Raisuli's headquarters was filmed at la Calahorra
castle, near Guadix, Granada. The scene at Yellowstone National Park (where Roosevelt gives his
famous grizzly bear speech) was filmed in the Meseta Central, north of Madrid. These latter two
locations would each re-appear in Milius' 1982 film Conan the Barbarian. The Marines and sailors
used in the Tangier attack scene were Spanish special forces troops, along with a handful of U. S.
Marine Corps and United States Navy personnel from the base in Rota De La Frontera, who
marched with precision through the streets of Seville and Almería en route to the Bashaw's palace.
According to Milius (on the DVD commentary), the U. S. Marine Corps actually shows this scene
to its advanced infantry classes for midshipmen at the U. S. Naval Academy.

According to Milius, virtually all of the film's stunts were performed by Terry Leonard. Leonard
was the stunt coordinator and did some of the stunts and also has a minor part as Roosevelt's
boxing opponent early in the film. Milius claims that only four American stunt men were used in
the entire final battle scene; the number of Spanish stunt men was close to twenty throughout the
filming. He and Leonard have defended the film against criticism for alleged "animal cruelty",
claiming that not a single horse was seriously hurt during filming. While filming this scene,
Antoine Saint-John revealed himself to be terrified of horses, and would often hide somewhere on
the set when his sword fight with Sean Connery was to be filmed.

Several of the crew are cast, most notably the cinematographer Billy Williams (perhaps best known
for Ken Russell's 1969 film Women in Love), who plays the gun-shooting, white-suited
Englishman Sir Joshua Smith in the opening scenes of the attack at the Pedecaris villa. The special
effects supervisor Alex Weldon appears as Roosevelt's Secretary of War, Elihu Root, and Milius
himself cameos as the one-armed German officer who gives the Sultan his Maxim gun to test-fire
("Herr Sultan is displeased?").

Milius later said he did not particularly enjoy working with Candice Bergen or Sean Connery,
particularly Connery because he was so "sour and dour". He greatly admired Connery's
performance, whereas he felt Bergen's acting range was extremely limited, and she was only
concerned with looking good.[1]

Reception
The Wind and the Lion debuted in New York during May 1975 and Britain in October. The film
was also a financial success, though Steven Spielberg's hit film Jaws distracted attention away
from it.

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 63% based on reviews from 16 critics.[10]
On Metacritic the film has a score of 69% based on reviews from 9 critics, indicating "generally
favorable reviews".[11]

Variety called it "Generally literate and very commercial period action drama, well written and
better directed by John Milius."[12]

Shortly after its release, the film was screened for U. S. President Gerald Ford and his staff, who
reportedly loved it.[13]

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Awards

The film was nominated for two Academy Awards; Jerry Goldsmith for Best Original Score and
Harry W. Tetrick, Aaron Rochin, William McCaughey, Roy Charman for Best Sound.[14]
Additionally, the Writers Guild of America nominated Milius' screenplay.

Novel
A novel, The Wind and the Lion by John Milius, based on Milius's film, was published by Award
Books in January 1975. Based on the screenplay, the story is slightly different from the finished
film, with several additional scenes (notably, Eden Perdicaris taking a bath at Raisuli's palace and
Gummeré watching the Atlantic Squadron arrive in Tangier) included, and the story's chronology
slightly different. The first printing included a chapter about production events and brief
biographies of the cast and crew.

Music
The score to The Wind and the Lion was composed and conducted by Jerry Goldsmith. True to the
style of such Golden Age scores as Maurice Jarre's Lawrence of Arabia, Goldsmith used a diverse
ensemble that relied heavily upon a large percussion section and a variety of Moroccan
instrumentation.[15] The music went on to earn Goldsmith an Academy Award nomination for Best
Original Score, though he lost to fellow composer John Williams for Jaws. It is often regarded as
one of the best scores of his career and was one of the American Film Institute's 250 nominees for
the top 25 American film scores.[16]

Home media
In Region 1, Warner Home Video released the film on DVD on January 6, 2004, featuring a brief
production featurette, the theatrical trailer, and a commentary by Milius. Sony Pictures Home
Entertainment has released a bare-bones DVD in Australia (R4) and in several European markets
(Region 2), notably Germany,[17] though not yet in the United Kingdom (the Sony release is
English-friendly though).

A Blu-ray edition of the film from the Warner Archive Collection was released on April 29,
2014.[18]

See also
List of American films of 1975

References
1. Ken Plume, "Interview with John Milius" (https://www.ign.com/articles/2003/05/07/an-interview-
with-john-milius?page=9) IGN, 7 May 2003 Retrieved 5 January 2013.
2. Gallagher, John (1989). Film Directors on Directing. ABC-Clio. pp. 174–175.
3. "All-Time Film Rental Champs", Variety, 7 January 1976, pg 48.
4. "Perdicaris Alive or Raisuli Dead!", American Heritage August 1959; later republished in
Tuchman's compilation book Practicing History: Selected Essays (1981), pp. 104-117
5. cf. Harris, pp. 81-83
6. Thompson, Richard (July–August 1976). "STOKED". Film Comment 12.4. pp. 10–21.

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7. Sterritt (28 July 1975). "Wind and the Lion'--a look behind MGM epic: Comments from its
'superstars' and its writer-director Deliberate distortion? False image?first=David". The
Christian Science Monitor. p. 26.
8. Murphy, Mary (Aug 2, 1974). "A 'Lollipop' for Valentine". Los Angeles Times. p. f13.
9. Segaloff, Nat, "John Milius: The Good Fights", Backstory 4: Interviews with Screenwriters of
the 1970s and 1980s, Ed. Patrick McGilligan, University of California 2006 p. 291-292
10. "The Wind and the Lion (1975)" (https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/wind_and_the_lion).
Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2020-05-04.
11. "The Wind and the Lion" (https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-wind-and-the-lion). Metacritic.
Retrieved 2020-05-04.
12. Variety Staff (1 January 1975). "The Wind and the Lion" (https://variety.com/1974/film/reviews/t
he-wind-and-the-lion-1200423319/). Variety.
13. David Sterritt (28 July 1975). " 'Wind and the Lion'--a look behind MGM epic: Comments from
its 'superstars' and its writer-director Deliberate distortion? False image?". The Christian
Science Monitor. p. 26.
14. "The 48th Academy Awards (1976) Nominees and Winners" (https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ce
remonies/1976). Oscars.org. Retrieved 2011-10-02.
15. The Wind and the Lion (https://www.filmtracks.com/titles/wind_lion.html) soundtrack review at
Filmtracks.com
16. AFI's 100 Years Of Film Scores (http://connect.afi.com/site/DocServer/scores250.pdf?docID=2
21) at AFI.com (https://www.afi.com/)
17. Official entry of the German edition, listing the various soundtracks and subtitles the DVD
comes with (https://www.sphe.de/details.phtml?id=729) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/
20090527183229/http://www.sphe.de/details.phtml?id=729) 2009-05-27 at the Wayback
Machine
18. Glenn Erickson (2014). "DVD Savant Blu-ray Review: The Wind and the Lion" (https://www.dvd
talk.com/dvdsavant/s4483wind.html). DvdTalk.com.

External links
The Wind and the Lion (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073906/) at IMDb
The Wind and the Lion (https://www.allmovie.com/movie/v54720) at AllMovie
The Wind and the Lion (https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/23504/enwp) at the TCM Movie
Database
The Wind and the Lion (https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/55224) at the American
Film Institute Catalog

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