Harrison Ford (far right), while working as a carpenter helped legendary Brazilian musician Sergio Mendes (center) build a studio/ Image courtesy Mendes
If you’re under forty years old, Harrison Ford has been a megastar your entire life. It’s hard to believe that he ever struggled as an actor at all, especially after being handed the role of Han Solo. But struggle he did, for three years. Sure, the one-two punch of Empire (1980) and Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) solidified Ford into an undeniable force in Hollywood, but that wasn’t initially true after Star Wars. It’s hard to believe now, but Harrison Ford starred in six films between Star Wars and Empire, seven if you count the notorious TV movie Star Wars Holiday Special (I won’t be). Each of these films are largely forgotten today. While some of them deserve their place in obscurity, others are, in my opinion, underrated.
Ford was already in his mid-thirties by the time he became an international star playing Han Solo. He had an entire career prior to that doing TV guest stars and some small but flashy roles in films like Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation and in George Lucas’s breakout hit American Graffiti.
Before that, he had little success as a contract player for the studio at the tail end of that archaic business model. It’s been well documented Ford all but gave up acting for carpentry before landing the role of Han Solo over bigger, more established names like Sylvester Stallone, Christopher Walken, and Kurt Russell. Star Wars was more than merely an unqualified hit, it changed the very way movies would be measured forever. Although Star Wars would go on to lose the 1977 Best Picture Oscar to Woody Allen’s Annie Hall, there was no doubt that the film had catapulted Harrison Ford firmly into A-list consideration. Which is why what happened next was so perplexing.
Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, and Mark Hamill recreating the Star Wars poster in 1977.
The next six films Ford would star in were as follows: Heroes, Force 10 from Navarone, Hanover Street, Apocalypse Now, The Frisco Kid, and More American Graffiti.
If you don’t remember most of these films, or that Ford was in any of them, you’re not alone.
With the exception of Hanover Street, the majority of these films were vehicles for other actors. Couple this with the fact Ford rarely speaks of this time in his filmography, combined with mostly dismal box office, probably explains why most of these films fell into relative obscurity. With the exception of Apocalypse Now, these films are hard to find on TV and received extremely lackluster releases on DVD.
While it would take George Lucas an agonizing three years before fans would get to see a follow-up to his first installment of what would become a multi-billion-dollar franchise, the stars of Star Wars quickly attached themselves to other projects in the interim. Ford’s first foray into a post-Star Wars role was in the film,
Heroes (1977) supporting role
Heroes is an underrated gem that is one of the first films to deal with Vietnam veterans and post-traumatic stress. Ford is billed third behind Henry Winkler and Sally Field.
Although this was Winkler’s first top-billed screen credit, he was immensely popular at the time playing the Fonz on the TV show Happy Days. Field, having just come off the extremely successful comedy Smokey and the Bandit, and only two years away from her first Best Actress Oscar, played Carol – a runaway bride trying to help center Winkler’s Jack and his manic persona in a cross-country journey. Jack and Carol seek out his former platoon around the country. One of Jack’s former Army buddies is Ken Boyd, played by Ford. Ford’s Ken is a dim-witted country boy who ends up spinning Jack into anger when he realizes the dreams they made “in-country” are most likely never going to happen.
Although this is a romantic comedy of sorts, Heroes has many bittersweet moments that still resonate today. Perhaps the reason it was ultimately unsuccessful, besides the heavy subject matter, is people weren’t ready to see the Fonz not be the Fonz, and they weren’t yet ready to see Ford be introspective. Both actors, along with Field playing her second consecutive runaway bride after Smokey and the Bandit, turn in beautiful, thoughtful performances. I recommend finding this film. Despite Heroes being touching and overlooked, fans still longed for Ford as the confident action star they fell in love with in a galaxy far, far away. Lucky for them, his next film would attempt to grant that wish.
Force 10 from Navarone (1978), ensemble
Force 10 from Navarone was the sequel to the popular novel by Alistair McClean and subsequent film, Guns of Navarone (1961) starring David Niven, Gregory Peck, and Anthony Quinn. Sadly, conventional wisdom was those actors, while all still very much alive, were too old to reprise their roles in the sequel some seventeen years later.
Ford for his part as Barnsby took over the role originated by Richard Harris. Ford would work with Harris in Patriot Games many years later. Force 10 should have been a smash success. In addition to Ford, finally back to his action roots and coming off the highest grossing movie of all time was Robert Shaw, who had just been in the second-highest grossing film of all time, Jaws; and Carl Weathers, who two years earlier had played the foil Apollo Creed in the 1976 Best Picture, Rocky. In addition to those big names there were other huge international stars like Franco Nero, Edward Fox, and future Bond girl Barbara Bach.
Force 10 had all the elements to be big, but it wasn’t.
Nearly an entire generation had passed between the first and second films, and any remaining fans of the original weren’t exactly keen on seeing all their favorite actors replaced. The failure of this film doesn’t lie with Ford. As a B-movie it’s enjoyable enough, especially if you like ensemble war movies that involve blowing stuff up. In terms of career damage, this one, like Heroes before it, could hardly be considered his fault. It’s not like he was the lead. He didn’t carry the movie all on his own. That would come next.
Hanover Street (1979), lead
Hanover Street finds Ford right back in World War II and, for the first time in his career, the lead actor of the movie. Ford plays Halloran, the leader of a bomb squadron who makes the mistake of falling in love with a married English nurse played by Lesley-Anne Down. Although this was directed by the great Peter Hyams and laden with his visual style, most notably using tons of smoke to accentuate light, Hanover Street is a hot mess.
First of all, for a sweeping romantic drama there appears to be zero on-screen chemistry between Ford and Down which is a feat considering they were allegedly shagging throughout production, something Down confirmed in a 2012 interview. Setting aside any behind the scenes passion, both Ford and Down reportedly hated making the film.
Both actors were replacements for Kris Kristofferson and Sarah Miles respectably, both of whom dropped out prior to filming. The critics savaged the film with Vincent Canby of The New York Times saying “Every now and then a film comes along of such painstaking, overripe foolishness that it breaks through the garbage barrier to become one of those rare movies you rush to see for laughs.”
Ouch. Even hardcore Ford fans should avoid this one. For his own part, Ford agrees as he claims to have never seen it.
Interesting sidenote, Down’s precocious young daughter in Hanover Street is played by future leading lady, Patsy Kensit.
Apocalypse Now (1979), cameo
Lucas. That was the name of Ford’s character and it was no coincidence.
Both Ford and Coppola thought George Lucas, Coppola’s former protégé, would get a kick out of it. While Apocalypse Now is unquestionably a brilliant film it really has little to do with Ford. Ford’s part as Colonel Lucas, the aide to G.D. Spradlin’s General Corman, also not a coincidence – a nod to Coppola’s mentor Roger Corman, is a moody scene full of exposition.
It’s a brilliant tension-filled morality play enhanced more from what is left unspoken. From what Martin Sheen reads from their eyes we get the importance of this scene. Ford’s Lucas, despite his rank as a Colonel, holds the lowest status in the room. That isn’t because he’s weak, but rather the other men, including Sheen’s Willard, the assassin, are so damn quietly cool.
Apocalypse Now had everything Ford’s previous post-Star Wars films lacked. It was a critical darling, box office hit, garnered a slew of Oscar nominations, and won the prestigious Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. For anyone interested in the backstory of this film I highly recommend the brilliant 1991 documentary, Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse. As great a film as this was Ford still had yet to prove himself as a legitimate box-office draw. Perhaps it was war.
All four of his previous films dealt with war, two in World War II, and two with Vietnam. Maybe Ford needed a new genre, maybe a comedy, or a western? Maybe both?
The Frisco Kid (1979), supporting
The Frisco Kid is a unique comedy western to say the least. It’s firmly a vehicle for Gene Wilder who plays a Polish rabbi wandering through the old west on his way to his new synagogue in San Francisco. Along the way he gets involved in all sorts of fish-out-of-water mishaps, including riding with a bank robber named Tommy, played by Ford.
Before I go any further, I must admit I’ve always had a soft spot for this film. Wilder is great in this and I think it shares conceptual bones with the DeNiro/Grodin comedy classic Midnight Run. The great William Smith even plays the bad guy. Having said all that, the movie isn’t that great, and certainly hasn’t aged well.
The Native American humor alone is at best somewhat cringeworthy. Like Hanover Street, Ford wasn’t the first choice for Tommy the bank robber. Ford ended up replacing none other than John Wayne. Wayne reportedly loved the role and was excited about the prospect of working with Wilder but likely dropped out due to being too ill. Wayne would succumb to stomach cancer soon after. The director, Robert Aldrich, never really took to Ford as he clearly wanted Wayne. The film was not a hit, although it would later find a cult audience on cable.
So that was it for Ford, four Wars and a Western, and nothing to show for it except people constantly asking when Star Wars 2 was coming out. But who says you can’t go home again?
More American Graffiti (1979), uncredited cameo
The last of the Ford Six was an uncredited cameo that revisits a character from the George Lucas classic American Graffiti. More American Graffiti brings the band back together and lets the audience in on what happened after the kids from the original grew up. I think the world of this film and find it a perfect complement to the original. I am vastly alone in this thinking with George Lucas himself trashing it openly.
He’s wrong by the way. I wrote a previous article about this film and why I think it’s perhaps the greatest film about Vietnam ever made. One of the reasons, in my opinion, is Ford’s uncredited cameo reprising his role as Bob Falfa.
Uncredited cameos, for name actors, are a long-winded way of saying “favor.” Ford didn’t need to come back for this. Richard Dreyfuss, who played the college-bound Curt in the original, didn’t even bother reprising the role that helped jump start his career. There is something wonderful that Ford did a nice turn for Lucas on this one. He had already helped two films in the previous year by stepping into roles when actors dropped out saving both productions in the process, but this was different.
Ford, by reprising his role, let us know what became of Falfa. With Dreyfuss out we only got one line about “Curt going to Canada” to avoid the draft. With Ford’s cameo we see Falfa, the guy from the original film who was the evil drag racer looking for trouble, the ultimate bad boy, the Brando in a sea of Monty Clifts, ending up becoming…a cop! Witnessing this is all-together hilarious and heartbreaking. Falfa of all people becoming the very thing he railed against is so awful it’s beautiful.
More American Graffiti, like its predecessor, not only makes us fall in love with the nostalgia, but showed us how brief it all was before people grew up, and in Falfa’s case, sold out. I love this film, and I think Ford’s appearance here not only speaks volumes of him as an actor who did a nice turn for someone he owed, but closed an important loophole in a wonderful story.
See both American Graffiti and More American Graffiti over two consecutive nights if you can. They are as one, a beautiful tale of American innocence found and lost.
Interesting sidenote, Ford’s previous uncredited cameos include playing a bellhop, a student protester, and as an irate motorist in only his second film Luv (1967) where his character punches Jack Lemon in the face. Ford’s most recent uncredited cameo was as Han Solo in Star Wars Episode IX-The Rise of Skywalker which did all of us a favor.
The next film after the Ford Six was Empire Strikes Back and the rest was history. Ford would go on to become one of the highest-grossing actors in the history of cinema with over six billion in worldwide box office.
Since Empire, he has firmly established himself at the top of the Hollywood heap with so many blockbuster franchises creating a stack of money so high its shadow has all but erased any trace of the ill-fated Ford Six.
