The woman who cuts my hair recently told me of a friend who refers to The Guns of Navarone whenever she is trying to describe a particularly buxom woman. If you’ve seen the movie, then you’ll know exactly what she’s talking about. These are big guns. Side by side. A pair of them, pointing out into the waters off Greece, preventing Allied ships from passing through to rescue 2,000 British soldiers who are trapped and at risk of being massacred. It’s the Second World War, and the Allies have decided that something must be done about these massive field guns. The options for taking them out are limited. They’re installed in the side of a mountain, protected from air attack. Their range and accuracy is such that an assault from the ocean simply isn’t practical. A full-fledged land attack also isn’t terribly realistic, as the island of Navarone is small and occupied by a large German force.
The only option available is an attack by a small group of commandoes. Captain Keith Mallory (Gregory Peck), an American, is assigned to the team, because he’s an experienced mountain climber and the only way to get on the island is by first scaling a cliff. Corporal Miller (David Niven) is an Englishman who’s on the team because he’s a brilliant explosives expert. They’ll need him to destroy the guns. Colonel Andrea Stavros (Anthony Quinn) is there because he’s a Greek who knows the area. He also happens to be a sworn enemy of Mallory. These three and three other commandoes set out on their mission, planning to meet up with a couple of resistance fighters once they’ve landed and are on their way to the guns.
The challenges faced by the team seem endless. There’s an accident while they climb the cliff. The Germans seem to know what they’re doing, raising the spectre of a turncoat being among them. Their munitions are tampered with. All this and the mission seemed darn near impossible before anything had gone wrong.
The Guns of Navarone is a success because director J. Lee Thompson has deftly pulled together all these twists, lots of action, witty lines and some decent character development. With the exception of a single scene where an escape comes all too easily, everything else seems terrifically real. It’s easy to overlook the presence of too many overly-dark night time scenes and the film’s excessive length. Peck and Quinn are entirely credible, and while Niven is disappointingly dour, James Darren at least partly compensates with a surprisingly convincing performance as a Greek member of the commando team. The special effects are tremendous, beginning with a storm-tossed boat that’s smashed against the rocks of the island, and continuing through the guns, which look entirely real.
More than just a standard 1950s or ‘60s war movie, The Guns of Navarone provides good entertainment because of its strong cast, smart screenplay (written by Carl Foreman, based on the Alistair MacLean novel) and big budget production values.
