Wild Geese II is a 1985 British action-thriller film directed by Peter Hunt, based on the 1982 novel The Square Circle by Daniel Carney, in which a group of mercenaries are hired to spring Rudolf Hess from Spandau Prison in Berlin.
Veteran mercenary Allen Faulkner trains and then leads a group of 50 hired soldiers in an attempt to rescue deposed President Julius Limbani.
After initially being successful the mission begins to fall apart; double-crossed and caught in the open, Faulkner's men are strafed and napalmed by an enemy plane.
As Alex Faulkner arrives for a meeting, Robert McCann is arguing with Michael Lukas about the delay of a planned rescue of Rudolf Hess.
Faulkner is escorted into the office; there he meets network executives Michael and Kathy Lukas, who ask him to free Hess - a request which he refuses.
When he leaves the prison with the construction crew, Haddad is abducted by Karl Stroebling who is a Nazi but works for the Soviet Union.
Haddad escapes by overpowering the thugs and rolls across the street, barely missing being run over by an oncoming truck as the police arrive and witness the incident.
Meeting with Reed-Henry to discuss his plan, Haddad agrees to hand over Hess to the colonel in exchange for help from Regimental Sergeant Major James Murphy.
Part of the plan involves a staged traffic accident, so Haddad employs fairground wall of death rider Pierre to perform the deliberate crash.
Haddad enlists his final team members, Arab businessman Mustapha El Ali and his employees, to take a couple of minor parts in the rescue.
At the rendezvous point at the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Reed-Henry tries to intercept Hess, but discovers that he has been duped into killing Stroebling disguised as a guard.
[3] Lewis Collins claimed he was originally signed to play Haddad due to a contract with producer Euan Lloyd[4] but the role went to the American Scott Glenn.
Producer Euan Lloyd had just visited him: "He looked tan and healthy and had just passed his physical examination for the film after a nice holiday in Switzerland".
[7] In January 1985, Thorn EMI split the cost of a five-picture £38 million slate of films they had made, including Dream Child, A Passage to India, Morons from Outer Space, The Holcroft Covenant and Wild Geese 2.
Then-77-year-old Laurence Olivier, who portrayed Rudolf Hess, was in poor health during filming requiring a nurse to accompany him during production.
Ingrid Pitt, who acted in the film but didn't have any scenes with him, did have dinner with Olivier during the production and described him as "very old and frail by this time but very gallant".