The Guns of Navarone (1961)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Truly Dreadful Film

i must have seen a different film!!

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

This film tells how the Allies sought to destroy a pair of German super-guns, placed in a fortress on a major naval strait in Greece. The film emphasizes from the start the damage that cannons do to allied plans and the surplus value that would come if they were destroyed. So, a group of British soldiers, backed by Greek resistance, will try to penetrate the fort undercover to break up with the guns. Okay, I am the most vehement supporter of the quality of this film, but as drama more than as a war movie. In fact, it does not have many action and reveals itself much more stopped, slow and reflective than a war movie usually is. Here we don't see the emotions, adventure or danger that is dormant in "Where Eagles Dare", based on a book of the same author and shot a few years later. On the other hand, the great seriousness and dramatic rapport of the cast led by David Niven, Gregory Peck and Anthony Quinn, makes the film much heavier and denser, helping to highlight the dramatic face even more so that the public almost forgets the war. The cast is luxury and they are all up to the challenge. There are no freshmen. All are great actors, with experience and a great talent.

The first question is whether or not it's worth upgrading from the DVD version to the Blu-Ray version. In my opinion, that's a firm no.I've long (well, I guess for over 50 years) felt this was one of the great war movies. I'm not so sure now, although to be fair, I'm rarely in the mood for a war movie. But I remembered this one fondly...but I guess absence makes the heart grow less fond. Nevertheless, it's a good story with a stellar cast.There were 2 places where the special effects were terrible. One was when Peck and Niven close the huge iron doors to lock the Germans out of their huge gun complex. The way their shadows fall, it is so very obvious they're in front of a painting, not in front of iron rails. And a few minutes later, looking out toward the sea from the guns...wow, how cheap looking.The big problem with this film, however, is the running length. There are times when things drag, and no wonder...the film lasts 2 hours and 38 minutes. It didn't need to. They could have easily cut 15-20 minutes. But my sense is that they kept it long to make it seem like it was a "bigger" movie than it really was.I have to admit that while Gregory Peck is not one of my very favorite actors, I also believe that Peck can do no wrong. I don't remember a film where he was any less than wonderful. Enough said.On the other hand we have David Niven. Over the years my like for Niven has declined considerably, and it seems to me that -- as in this film -- the main reason that he could be very pompous, and there were several scenes in this film where that was called for. But, looking at the film now, I feel he was more of a negative than a positive.Anthony Quinn was near the beginning of his period of true stardom when this film was made. Quinn always had an earthy quality about him, and that worked very well here.Anthony Quayle is excellent here, although we don't see much of him after about halfway through the film.I feel sorry for James Darren. Despite being in the film from the beginning until almost the very end, he had only a handful of sentences of dialog. I guess he was there because he was young and handsome.Irene Papas and Gia Scala...okay, but nothing special here.I guess I sound pretty negative here, but I do think this is a decent film. But not as great a film as I remember it being. Gia Scala as Anna

It's 1943. 2000 British troops are trapped on the island of Keros in the Aegean Sea. The Nazis are about to launch a massive assault in six days. Any escape is blocked by two massive guns on the island of Navarone. Air attacks has been useless. The Allies send in mountaineer Captain Keith Mallory (Gregory Peck), defeated Greek Colonel Andrea Stavrou (Anthony Quinn), explosive expert Corporal Miller (David Niven), former Navaronite Greek-American Spyros Pappadimos (James Darren), and knife fighter/engineer Butcher Brown (Stanley Baker). They are led by Major Roy Franklin (Anthony Quayle). They have to take out the guns before 6 British destroyers make a run for Keros.The action is good but a bit old fashion. The action at sea in the storm does get a little confusing. It's not as exciting as I want. The cliff climbing is also very fake with obvious painting and interior sets. Even the shooting and battles are very static. The cameras don't seem to move. I also wish they stop throwing dummies over a big drop. It's obvious that those are mannequins. At least, they are putting a lot of men and equipment on the screen in some of the filler scenes. As for the story, it gets a little gritty for its time while it's also slow in some stretches. The actors are generally too old for the roles. However that gives the movie a world-weary feel. It's good because they are even more of an underdog group.

A very, very good film, I'd go as far to say that its best parts- and there are a great many of them- are great. The Guns of Navarone does plod in the pace a tad at times and some of the camera work and special effects look under-budgeted and silly now compared to the rest of the production values(the script and score were in my view more deserving of an Oscar win, but were up against stiff competition that year). The Guns of Navarone does boast atmospheric scenery, expressive lighting that gives the film a haunting but not obvious look and mostly skilled photography, so while not a great-looking film regardless of some camera work and effects it's a good-looking one. Dmitri Tiomkin's justifiably Oscar-nominated and Golden Globe-winning music score is stirring in the very best of ways and sets the atmosphere and what the characters are thinking brilliantly. It is sometimes used sparingly but that really works here, considering what's going on. The film is very intelligently scripted in a way that's easy to understand and does a great job developing the characters, who are compellingly real, not black and white and are ones that we really get to know, especially David Niven's. It was nice to see the Germans as formidable yet human instead of being one-sided. The story is told with a great deal of tension, realism and suspense that are maintained throughout the long(two and a half hours) length, some of the many suspenseful scenes being without music or dialogue and just sound effects(nail-biting ones too), The Guns of Navarone really does have to have some of the best use of silence of any film. The story's tone shifts are done smoothly and not in a way that's awkward or bizarre, it has a strong message not done in a over-didactic way and the ending is gut-wrenching. The pace plods here and there but mostly is very efficient and actually with the characters and story being as engrossing as they were the film never to me became a bore. The direction is sympathetic to the action but manages to inject life into the storytelling and sustain the amount of tension and suspense there is, giving it all space to develop. The cast were great on paper and their acting is even greater, the acting honours going to David Niven in a smooth, witty and touching performance as the most interesting and well-developed character of the film. Gregory Peck can be wooden but he's anything but here, he may not pass for British but his command of the screen and his rapport with Niven more than compensates. And you cannot go wrong with Stanley Baker, Anthony Quayle, Anthony Quinn, Irene Papas, James Darren and James Robertson-Justice, all fine here especially a very humorous Quinn. Only Richard Harris disappointed, a little stiff and with a pretty appalling accent. On the whole, while not the greatest wartime drama(the granddaddy of them is still 1930's All Quiet on the Western Front) the Guns of Navarone is great stuff and a near-classic. 9/10 Bethany Cox