The Guns of Navarone (film)

Coordinates: 37°52′53″N 25°39′7″E / 37.88139°N 25.65194°E / 37.88139; 25.65194

The Guns of Navarone

Directed by J. Lee Thompson
Produced by Carl Foreman
Screenplay by Carl Foreman
Based on The Guns of Navarone
(1957 novel) 
by Alistair MacLean
Starring Gregory Peck
David Niven
Anthony Quinn
Narrated by James Robertson Justice
Music by Dimitri Tiomkin
Cinematography Oswald Morris
Edited by Alan Osbiston
Production
company
Highroad Productions
Distributed by Columbia Pictures
Release dates

27 April 1961 (Royal World Premiere, London)

  • 22 June 1961 (1961-06-22)
Running time
 158 minutes
Country United Kingdom
United States
Language English
Budget $6 million
Box office $28.9 million

The Guns of Navarone is a 1961 British-American epic adventure war film directed by J. Lee Thompson. The screenplay by producer Carl Foreman was based on Alistair MacLean's 1957 novel The Guns of Navarone, which was inspired by the Battle of Leros during the Dodecanese Campaign of World War II. The film stars Gregory Peck, David Niven and Anthony Quinn, along with Stanley Baker and Anthony Quayle. The book and the film share the same basic plot: the efforts of an Allied commando team to destroy a seemingly impregnable German fortress that threatens Allied naval ships in the Aegean Sea, and prevents 2,000 isolated British troops from being rescued.

Plot

In 1943, the Axis powers plan an assault on the island of Keros — where 2,000 British soldiers are marooned — to bully neutral Turkey into joining them with a display of their military strength. Rescue by the Royal Navy is prevented by two massive radar-directed superguns on the nearby island of Navarone. When aerial bombing efforts fail, Allied Intelligence gathers a team of commandos to infiltrate Navarone and destroy the guns. Led by Major Roy Franklin (Anthony Quayle), the team is composed of Captain Keith Mallory (Gregory Peck), a renowned spy and mountaineer; Colonel Andrea Stavrou (Anthony Quinn) from the defeated Greek army; Franklin's best friend Corporal Miller (David Niven), an explosives expert and former chemistry teacher; Greco-American Spyros Pappadimos (James Darren), a native of Navarone; and "Butcher" Brown (Stanley Baker), an engineer and expert knife fighter.

Disguised as Greek fishermen on a decrepit fishing vessel, they sail across the Aegean Sea, where they successfully kill the crew of a German patrol boat coming aboard to inspect them. Later in the voyage Mallory confides to Franklin that Stavrou had sworn to kill him after the war, because Mallory was inadvertently responsible for the deaths of Stavrou's wife and children. The team shipwreck on Navarone's coast during a storm; Mallory leads the climb up the cliff, but Franklin badly injures his leg; the injury later becomes infected with gangrene. While taking shelter in the mountains, Mallory stops Franklin from committing suicide and then lies to him: that their mission has been cancelled and that a major naval attack will be mounted on the Navarone coast, away from the gun emplacements. They rendezvous with local resistance fighters: Spyros' sister Maria (Irene Papas) and her friend Anna (Gia Scala), who was once captured and tortured by the Germans before escaping; the trauma rendering her mute.

The mission is continually dogged by German soldiers, and the group is eventually captured in the town of Mandrakos while trying to find a doctor for Franklin. Stavrou pretends to grovel as they're being interrogated, which distracts the Germans enough for the group to overpower their captors. They escape in German uniforms, but leave Franklin behind to receive medical attention. In due course, Franklin is injected with scopolamine and gives up Mallory's misinformation, as Mallory had hoped: the fort is emptied in preparation for the supposed attack. Upon infiltrating Navarone, however, Miller discovers most of his explosives have been sabotaged and deduces that Anna is the culprit; she is forced to confess that she is not mute after all, and that the Germans recruited her as an informer in exchange for her release. Mallory reluctantly prepares to execute Anna as punishment, but Maria shoots her instead.

The team splits up: Mallory and Miller go for the guns; Stavrou and Spyros create distractions in town, assisted by brave local residents; Maria and Brown steal a boat for their escape. Spyros dies in a stand-off with a German officer, and Brown from knife wounds inflicted during the boat theft. Meanwhile, Mallory and Miller infiltrate the gun emplacement, but set off an alarm when they seal the doors behind them. Mallory and Miller proceed further towards the battery, where Miller then plants explosives on the guns and hides more below an ammunition hoist — with a trigger device set into the hoist's wheels. The Germans eventually gain entry into the gun cave, but Mallory and Miller make their escape by diving into the sea, reaching the stolen boat. A wounded Stavrou is helped aboard by Mallory, thus voiding the blood feud between them.

The Allied destroyers appear on schedule, but the Germans find the explosives planted on the guns and begin to fire on the passing Allied flotilla. The hoist eventually descends low enough to trigger the hidden explosives, which sets off the surrounding shells into destroying the guns and the fort. Mallory's team safely reaches the British convoy, but Stavrou decides to return to Navarone with Maria, with whom he has fallen in love. Mallory and Miller, returning home, observe the aftermath of their success from a destroyer.

Cast

Production

The film was part of a cycle of big-budget World War II adventures that included The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), The Longest Day (1962) and The Great Escape (1963). The screenplay, adapted by producer Carl Foreman, made significant changes from the novel The Guns of Navarone by Alistair MacLean. The film was directed by J. Lee Thompson. Thompson was brought in after original director Alexander Mackendrick was fired by Carl Foreman a week before shooting started due to "creative differences".[1]

The Greek island of Rhodes provided locations and Quinn was so taken with the area that he bought land there in an area still called Anthony Quinn Bay. Some further scenes were shot on the islands of Gozo, near Malta, and Tino, in the Ligurian Sea. One of the warships in the film, the USS Slater, then a training ship in the Hellenic Navy known as Aetos (D-01), is preserved as a museum ship in Albany, New York.[2]

As described by director Thompson in the DVD commentary track, David Niven became severely ill after shooting in the pool of water underneath the cave elevator and almost died, remaining in hospital for some weeks as other portions of the cave sequence were completed by the crew. However, since key scenes with Niven remained incomplete at that time, and it was doubtful whether Niven would be able to return to finish the film, the entire production was in jeopardy. Reshooting key scenes throughout the film with some other actor—and even abandoning the whole project to collect the insurance—was contemplated. Fortunately, Niven was able to complete his scenes some weeks later.

A complication arose when it was found that Gregory Peck, whose character was supposed to be fluent in German, could not speak the language convincingly. Voice actor Robert Rietty dubbed all of Peck's German dialogue for the film.[3]

The film's maps were created by Halas and Batchelor, a British team best known for their animated films.

Several members of the Greek Royal Family visited the set the day the cafe scene was filmed and appeared in the background as extras.[4]

Reception

The Guns of Navarone had its Royal World Premiere in aid of the Edwina Mountbatten Trust and in the presence of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh on April 27th 1961 at the Odeon Leicester Square in London's West End. The film grossed $28,900,000 at the box office[5] and was the 2nd top-grossing film of 1961, earning a net profit of $18,500,000.[6]

Awards and honors

Won

Nominated[7]

Sequel

In 1968, author MacLean reunited Mallory, Miller, and Stavros in the best-selling novel Force 10 From Navarone, the only sequel of his long writing career. That was in turn filmed as the significantly different Force 10 from Navarone in 1978 by British director Guy Hamilton, a veteran of several James Bond films. The cast included Robert Shaw, Harrison Ford and Edward Fox. Though the sequel was a modest success, it did not match the original critically or commercially.

In popular culture

References

  1. ↑ Staff writer(s). "The Guns of Navarone". TCM.com.
  2. ↑ "Aboard the U.S.S. Slater in Albany, NY". New York Traveler.net.
  3. ↑ "A Forehead Pressed Against a Window" by Robert Rietty, pp.318-19
  4. ↑ Perry, Vern (June 8, 2000). "'Guns of Navarone' high-caliber". The Orange County Register. p. 31.
  5. ↑ Box Office Information for The Guns of Navarone. The Numbers. Retrieved 13 December 2012.
  6. ↑ Steinberg, Cobbett (1980). Film Facts. New York: Facts on File, Inc. p. 24. ISBN 0-87196-313-2.
  7. ↑ "The 34th Academy Awards (1962) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved 22 August 2011.
  8. ↑ "The Dick Van Dyke Show, episode You're Under Arrest (Season 5, Episode 13)". IMDb. Retrieved 20 June 2013.
  9. ↑ "The Dick Van Dyke Show Season 5 Episode 13 You're Under Arrest". TV.com. Retrieved 20 June 2013.
  10. ↑ http://genius.com/28783

External links

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