The Wind and the Lion is a 1975 American epic historical adventure film written and directed by John Milius, and starring Sean Connery, Candice Bergen, Brian Keith, and John Huston. The film is loosely based on the real-life Perdicaris affair of 1904. Connery plays Mulai Ahmed er Raisuli, a Moroccan Berber rebel and anti-imperialist leader, and Bergen plays his American hostage Eden Pedecaris, a fictional character inspired by Ion Hanford Perdicaris.
Milius' second feature film as a director, it was produced by Herb Jaffe for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and distributed in the U.S. by United Artists and internationally by Columbia Pictures. It received generally positive reviews from critics, and was a moderate commercial success. Jerry Goldsmith’s film score received Academy Award, BAFTA Award and Grammy Award nominations. Milius was nominated for a Writers Guild of America Award for his screenplay.
Plot In 1904, Morocco is the source of conflict among the colonial powers of Germany, France, and the British Empire. Each nation is trying to establish a sphere of influence in that country. Mulai Ahmed er Raisuli is the leader of a band of Berber insurrectionists opposed to the young Sultan Abdelaziz and his uncle, the Bashaw of Tangier. Raisuli considers the Bashaw to be corrupt and beholden to the Europeans. He kidnaps the American Eden Pedecaris and her children, William and Jennifer, in a raid on their home. Sir Joshua Smith, a British friend of Eden's, is killed during the raid. Raisuli then issues an outrageous ransom demand, deliberately attempting to provoke an international incident in order to embarrass the Sultan and start a civil war.
In the United States, President Theodore Roosevelt is seeking election to a full term. He decides to use the kidnapping as both political propaganda (coining the phrase "Pedecaris alive or Raisuli dead!") and as an effort to demonstrate America's military strength as a new great power, despite the protests of his cautious Secretary of State, John Hay.
The American Consul to Tangier, Samuel Gummeré, is unable to negotiate a peaceful return of the hostages. In response, 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 and 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. Jerome and a small contingent of Marines are present to secure Pedecaris and her children. Raisuli's friend, the Sherif of Wazan, organizes the Berber tribe for an attack on the Europeans and Moroccans, while Eden suddenly attacks Jerome. She convinces him and his men at gunpoint to rescue Raisuli to uphold the word of President Roosevelt that Raisuli will be unharmed if the Pedecaris family are returned safely.
A three-way battle ensues, 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. Later, Roosevelt reads a letter he received from Raisuli, comparing the two men: "To Theodore Roosevelt - You are like the wind and I like the lion. You form the tempest. The sand stings my eyes and the ground is parched. I roar in defiance but you do not hear. But between us there is a difference. I, like the lion, must remain in my place. While you, like the wind, will never know yours. - Mulay Ahmed Mohammed El Raisuli the magnificent, Lord of the Rif, Sultan to the Berbers."
Cast
Several members of the film's crew make supporting and cameo appearances: writer-director John Milius as a one-armed German military advisor, director of photography Billy Williams as Sir Joshua Smith, special effects supervisor Alex Weldon as US Secretary of War Elihu Root, and stunt coordinator Terry Leonard as Roosevelt's sparring partner Dan Tyler Moore.
Development Writing
John Milius' inspiration had come from reading an article by Barbara W. Tuchman about the Perdicaris affair in American Heritage magazine,"Perdicaris Alive or Raisuli Dead!", American Heritage August 1959; later republished in Tuchman's compilation book Practicing History: Selected Essays (1981), pp. 104-117 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 Hanford Perdicaris a woman, Eden Pedecaris. Milius also researched Rosita Forbes's 1924 biography of Mulai Ahmed er Raisuni, 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.cf. Harris, pp. 81-83 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 William and Jennifer being her grandchildren, and the Berber would be a similar age. Milius:
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.
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".
Influences 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 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".
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 (Candice Bergen) 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(Polly Gottesman) being cornered by Aldo Sambrell's character the Ugly Arab 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".
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 Sultan Abdelaziz (Marc Zuber) 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.
Casting Milius originally wanted Omar Sharif to play Raisuli and Faye Dunaway to play Eden Pedecaris, 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 later said he did not particularly enjoy working with Bergen or 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.