THE DELTA FORCE (FILM)

'''The Delta Force''' is a 1986 action film starring Chuck Norris and Lee Marvin as leaders of an elite squad of special forces troops based on the real life U.S. Army Delta Force unit. It was directed by Menahem Golan and featured Martin Balsam, Joey Bishop, Robert Vaughn, Robert Forster, Shelley Winters, and George Kennedy. The film was produced in Israel.
''The Delta Force'' was Lee Marvin's last film.

Contents

Plot synopsis

Filming Locations

Equipment and Vehicles

Historical connections

Trivia

External links

Plot synopsis

A group of Arab terrorists hijack American Travelways (ATW) Flight 282 flying from Athens to Rome and then to New York City. Taking all passengers and crew hostage and diverting the plane to Beirut, the group, the pro-Khomeini New World Revolutionary Organization, make demands to the United States government that, if not met, will result in the death of them all.
As a compromise, the terrorists release the women and children passengers. The remaining hostages are transported to a militant controlled area of Beirut. Using a sympathetic Orthodox Priest, the Israeli Army Intelligence prepare an operation to free the hostages.
The U.S. quickly responds by sending in Delta Force, an elite counter-terrorism unit to rescue the hostages. Successfully infiltrating the terrorist compound, they rescue the hostages and flee to the safety of Israel on the ATW jetliner, before returning to the U.S on a C-130 transport plane.
The film was followed by two sequels, '' and '' in 1990 and 1991.

Filming Locations

The film was photographed entirely in Israel, making use of Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus's newly opened GG Israel Studios facility in Jerusalem. The Beirut, Tel-Aviv and Athens airport sequences in the film were filmed at Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel-Aviv. In some sequences, Hebrew lettering and Israeli Police emblems are visible on some of the supposed Lebanese airport barriers.
The military aircraft (notably the Hercules C-130) used in the film were on loan from the Israeli Air Force. The lease arrangement was similar to that used for Iron Eagle, another Cannon Group Inc. film.

Equipment and Vehicles

In this film, can see, the individual equipment of one member of that unit:
The first of the equipment is the tactical vest, which in some scenes, can see with some steam grenades. Other things that you can see is an longer rope with knots for facility of use at time of scale it(are wearing crosswise of body, from left shoulder to down of right arm).
The seconds utilities that you can see in a member of the unit, are the firearms: the first of these, is an mini UZI as machine gun with an optional silencer. The second is an automatic pistol. The first as UZI as optional silencer are wearing down of the left arm. The second is wearing in the right leg.
The vehicles for this unit used in this film are two motocycles with one mini machine gun at each side of the little glass protection of pilot and a few up of forward wheel one launcher-rocket, at each side. The motocycles have too, one mini mortar behind of the pilot, and disposed at each side a few up of back wheel. Other vehicle used, are 6 mini Desert Vehicle Patrol, DPV's, which you can see armed with an booster rockets, an the copilot some times armed with an machine gun.
The different into DPV and mini DPV, is the first carried an seat for an third passenger that is colocated up of pilot and copilot seats, and that is armed with and mk 19 launcher grenader. The DPV have a range of 200 miles and 60 mph. You can see this vehicle at this direction: http://navyseals.com/desert-patrol-vehicle-dpv.

Historical connections

★ The hijacked flight in the movie bears many resemblances with the real-life hijack of TWA Flight 847 in 1985:

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★ The route is Cairo-Athens-Rome.

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★ In the film, the flight's final destination is New York. However, Flight 847's final destination was London.

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★ Two terrorists took over the flight, the third one being arrested in Athens.

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★ The flight was diverted to Beirut and Algiers.

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★ The lead flight attendant (played in the movie by Hanna Schygulla) was of German descent and was asked by a hijacker to single out the Jewish passengers on board.

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★ Upon landing, one of the hostages, a United States Navy diver, was shot.

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★ The fictional airline in the movie, ATW (American Travelways), is an anagram of TWA (Trans World Airlines).

★ The hostage rescue operation was inspired by Operation Entebbe, which was conducted by Israeli commandos in 1976. It was the subject of another movie by Menahem Golan, ''Mivtsa Yonatan'' (released in English as ''Operation Thunderbolt''), in 1977.

★ The beginning of the film replicated Operation Eagle Claw, the aborted attempt to rescue American hostages held at the U.S. Embassy in Iran in 1980.

Trivia

★ Assaf Dayan, who plays Raffi Amir, is the son of Israeli military leader Moshe Dayan.

★ The Beirut terrorist militia carry pictures of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the photographs can be seen in the school in which the hostages are kept.

★ The film reuses many actors from Menahem Golan's 1977 film ''Mivtsa Yonatan'' (''Operation Jonathan'' or ''Operation Thunderbolt'').

★ The account of the Delta Force rescue operation is historically inaccurate.

★ The movie only has one musical theme with minor variations which runs throughout the movie.

★ The Boeing 707 featured in the film was an early production model, ordered by Cubana (which never took ownership) but delivered new as a 707-139 to Western Airlines on May 13th, 1960. It was then sold in 1964 to Pan Am, which operated it for several years before leasing it to several other carriers, including: Aer Lingus, British Caledonian, El Al, and many others. It was the 108th 707 off the line, with serial number 17903. It appears in the movie with the Pan Am tail number N778PA.

External links

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