Brannigan is a 1975 British action thriller film directed by Douglas Hickox and starring John Wayne and Richard Attenborough filmed in Panavision and DeLuxe Color. One of the screenwriters was Dalton Trumbo's son, Christopher Trumbo.
Set principally in London, the film is about a Chicago detective sent to Britain to organise the extradition of an American mobster, who is soon kidnapped and held for ransom. Struggling with the restrained policing style of his British counterparts, the tough Irish-American detective uses his own brand of law enforcement to recapture the criminal. It was one of many Dirty Harry-type films released in the wake of that film's success, featuring rogue cops who don't "play by the rules."
Plot
Tough Chicago Police Lieutenant Jim Brannigan (John Wayne) is sent to London to extradite a notorious American gangster, Ben Larkin (John Vernon). Brannigan is assigned a local officer, Jennifer (Judy Geeson), to help while he is in London. But before Brannigan can collect his man, Larkin is kidnapped.
Larkin's finger is cut off and mailed to the police to prove how serious the kidnappers are. The mobster's lawyer, Mel Fields (Mel Ferrer), tries to arrange a ransom drop while Brannigan makes his way around London in search of Larkin. Whilst struggling to adapt to the British way of life, and the restrained style of policing, he employs techniques not usually seen in Britain.
In the meantime, a contract had already been put out on Brannigan's life by Larkin, so hit man Gorman (Daniel Pilon) tails Brannigan in a black Jaguar E-Type, making several attempts to kill him and nearly shooting Jennifer by mistake.
Commander Charles Swann (Richard Attenborough), in charge of helping get Larkin to America, is a stuffy, titled, upper class Metropolitan Police commander who is not afraid to get his hands dirty. There is continual conflict between Brannigan and Swann about the American's carrying, and use of, his .38 Colt Diamondback revolver.
Permitted to go alone to deliver the ransom payment, Fields personally eliminates the kidnappers. He and Larkin celebrate having pulled off a scheme to get the money, Larkin calling the loss of a finger a small price to pay. Brannigan bursts in to foil their plans. As he and Jennifer walk away, Gorman tries to mow them down with his car, but he is shot by Brannigan, who can now return home to Chicago.
Cast
Production
Brannigan was filmed on location in London during 1974. (It is the only film starring John Wayne that was not filmed in the United States.) The film's action sequences included a car chase through Battersea's Shaftsbury & Winstanley Estate, Wandsworth and Central London featuring Brannigan jumping a yellow Ford Capri coupé across the half raised Tower Bridge. The jump itself was accomplished with scale models of both the bridge and the car. Ford supplied most of the vehicles used in the film, which came from their press fleet. One sequence features shots of the interior and exterior of London's Royal Automobile Club, which has changed little since the shooting of the film. The Capri's jump was one of the last significant appearances of Tower Bridge without its red, white and blue paint scheme which was applied in 1977 to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II. A fight sequence was filmed in the Lamb Tavern in Leadenhall Market. The E-Type Jaguar that the hitman, Gorman, drives in the film still exists and is in the hands of a private collector today.
Conversely, the film's opening sequence and first several minutes display Chicago roadways, riverside buildings and an early O'Hare Terminal 1 that have all been razed and replaced. For example, the film opens on a squad car making the former turn on Upper Lake Shore Drive where East Wacker Drive now exists and where Field Drive had been planned to intersect; in the background, iron workers can be seen constructing the connecting portion of Upper Wacker. The 300 block of North Canal Street, where Brannigan conducts an investigation using "enhanced interrogation techniques", rapidly developed between this film, Doctor Detroit, and Raw Deal, and has further developed through to the present day. As Brannigan approaches O'Hare, the Kennedy Expressway is devoid of both commercial development to the north and south, and the Blue Line tracks in the median.