Brannigan

Brannigan (1975)

Runtime: 111 minutes

Directed by: Douglas Hickox

Starring: John Wayne, Richard Attenborough, Mel Ferrer, Judy Geeson, John Vernon

From: United Artists


This is a movie I saw early this year but I remember enough about it to where I can talk about it on here.

Admittedly I’ve barely dug into Wayne’s catalogue of movies; one of these days I’ll rectify it. For now I’ll talk about this mid 70’s curio, one of two movies he filmed back to back where he played a cop (the other being McQ, another film worth seeing) and he played a gentler version of Dirty Harry, basically. It sounds odd, I know, but allegedly he was either thought of or turned down that famous role. I’ve heard different stories so I don’t know how valid it is, but those two movies certainly are inspired by that 1971 film and there’s also other similar flicks that are borrowed from, especially Bullitt.

This movie is about a Chicago cop who has to go to London to extradite a gangster back to the U.S. He is assigned a British female cop (Geeson) as a partner and with his gruff aggressive American manner he rubs Geeson and her boss (Attenborough) the wrong way. There are twists and turns along the way and you can get a good example of what you get to see by seeing its trailer on YouTube.

As you can see, there are nice flurries of action throughout and it doesn’t drag. Sure, there are some goofy moments, as you saw in the beginning of the trailer where a mid 60’s Wayne is able to knock down a wooden door from its hinges and then deliver a quip, but it’s all in good fun and the highlight is the barroom brawl. It’s not a must-see or anything but both McQ and Brannigan are sometimes on TV on stations like TCM or the HD stations so you can check it out there or rent the DVD if you’re able to.

Check back here tomorrow night.