The Guns of Navarone is based on a novel written by Alistair MacLean, who wrote a lot of other great war and clandestine-mission novels. Released in 1961, The Guns of Navarone film was directed by J. Lee Thompson, adapted for the screen by Carl Foreman, and had a potent cast including Gregory Peck, David Niven, and Anthony Quinn.
The 156 minute epic is about a small group of British men who are tasked by their government to infiltrate a Nazi base on an island and destroy two massive rail guns that are situated on a mountainside. RAF attacks aren’t working, and ships are being lost at sea with every attempt to approach the island. Besides existing Allied Force losses, 2,000 POWs are stranded and need rescuing.
Gregory Peck is Captain Mallory, who is briefed at the beginning of the film on the details of exactly how the British think they can pull this off. The mission is nigh suicide — use a boat to get to the southside cliff, the one that on site intelligence believes the Nazis only barely watch, and scale all six operatives and their equipment up a 400ft rock wall. Surviving that, meet up with a local contact and find a way inside the guns compound before a fleet of ships arrives to pick up the POWs.
Mallory’s roll, as a former world-best climber, is to get the men up the side of the rock wall and help them infiltrate with this intimate knowledge of the German and Greek languages. But when the commanding officer breaks his leg during the climb, Mallory takes over command of the entire op. Under his command are Cpl Miller (Niven), a explosives expert. Col Andreas Starvos (Quinn) is a solid all around soldier, while Spyro and “Butcher” Brown round out the team.
Surviving a search by a Nazi vessel at sea, a powerful storm, and the climb, are only the first of many intense situations the team must contend with. At every turn, the Nazis seem to be one step ahead of them, but with their wit and skill they manage to keep the mission afloat. Expect one harrowing encounter after another until it’s finally do or die time.
Throughout, the pacing of the movie is very good, although in truth the movie does run around fifteen or twenty minutes long with some scenes that feel just a bit prolonged. This longer scenes — such as the boat in the storm and also the interrogation of the men in a Nazi office — don’t feel awkwardly long, but when you look at the total runtime of the movie, there are a handful of such scenes that could have been trimmed down.
Regardless of being just a little long in the tooth, The Guns of Navarone is a classic, all around very well executed film thanks to some outstanding actors and a great production job.
50th Anniversary Blu-ray
Sony Pictures did a great job with this release. The image quality was remastered via a 4K digital restoration from the original camera negative — and it shows from the opening scenes in Greece. There are a total of probably two minutes throughout the entire film in which the image quality looks outright bad. It’s as though these particular shots were taken untouched, and are therefore lacking in clarity and sharpness. These inferior moments are overwhelmed by the remaining image quality which is clean, vibrant, and satisfying. The scene, early on in the movie, when the crew picks up their rickety old boat, is a great example of the bright, beautiful image quality. The DTS-HD MA 5.1 audio track compliments the visual experience nicely, and English subtitles are also included, although I notice that they aren’t exact matches to what is actually being said in the movie.
As for extra features, there are quite a few, which is a pleasant surprise. Here’s what to expect:
-The Resistance Dossier – Viewers can choose from a handful of different topics related to the film and read or watch short videos about the movie.
-Forging The Guns of Navarone: Notes from the Set – (SD, 14m): This is ‘making of’ feature of sorts that looks at a variety of topics related to the production of the film including topics on the crew and the locations used in filming.
-Iconic Epic of Heroism (SD, 24m37s) – This feature examines the plot in more detail along with a lot of other ‘making’ of type of details.
-Epic Restoration (SD, 9m37s) – A really neat look at what went into restoring this film for the Blu-ray release. I love these types of features.
-Audio Commentary with film historian Stephen J. Rubin.
-Audio Commentary with Director J. Lee Thompson.
-A Heroic Score (SD, 9m20s) – A fairly comprehensive look at the score.
-Narration-free Prologue (SD, 5m45s) – A slightly different opening to the film.
-Memories of Navarone (SD, 29m34s) – Probably the best feature of them all, here we have some ‘old’ interviews with the cast as they reminisce about the movie.
-Great Guns (HD, 4m35s) – This one is about filming in Greece.
-Message From Carl Foreman (HD, 2m) – Carl did the screenwriting and he briefly discusses the movie.
-Trailers – The Original and Exhibitor trailers are included.
-Honeymoon On Rhodes (SD, 4:36s) – I didn’t really care for this feature that essentially promotes Rhodes as a desirable vacation or honeymooning location.
-Two Girls On The Two (SD, 4m34s) – Actress Irene Papas, the lead female protagonist in the film, reminisces about her time on the set.
-No Visitors (HD, 4m35s) – A look at the numerous people that came to the filming of Guns.
That’s quite a few extra features for any Blu-ray release, much less one for a classic film that likely won’t see the sales of a more modern release (unfortunately). It’s great that Sony Pictures put this much effort into commemorating the 50th anniversary.
To the summary…