The Guns of Navarone

Gregory Peck, Anthony Quinn and David Niven are the Allied saboteurs assigned to infiltrate an impregnable Nazi-held island to destroy the guns of Navarone in this thrilling World War II adventure.

The Guns of Navarone is a 1961 film based on the 1957 novel of the same name about World War II by Scottish thriller writer Alistair MacLean. It stars Gregory Peck, David Niven and Anthony Quinn, along with Anthony Quayle and Stanley Baker. 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.

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The film opens with an aerial view of the Greek Islands, and a narrator (James Robertson Justice), setting the scene. The year is 1943, and 2000 British soldiers are holed up on the island of Keros in the Aegean near Turkey. Rescue by the Royal Navy is impossible because of massive guns on the nearby island of Navarone. Time is short, because the Germans are expected to launch an assault on the British forces, to draw Turkey into the war on the Axis' side.

Efforts to blast the guns by air have proven fruitless, so a team has been hastily assembled to sail to Navarone and blow up the guns. Led by Major Roy Franklin (Anthony Quayle), they are Capt. Keith Mallory (Gregory Peck); Andrea Stavros (Anthony Quinn), a Colonel in the defeated Greek army; Corporal Miller (David Niven), an explosives expert; Greek-American street tough Spyros Pappadimos (James Darren); and "Butcher" Brown (Stanley Baker), an engineer and expert knife fighter.

Disguised as Greek fishermen on a decrepit boat, they sail across the Aegean Sea. They are intercepted by a German boat and boarded. On Mallory's signal, they attack and kill all the Germans and blow up the patrol boat. Afterwards, Mallory confides to Franklin that Stavros has sworn to kill him after the war, because he was inadvertently responsible for the deaths of Stavros' wife and children.

Their landing on the coast that night is hampered by a violent storm. The ship is wrecked and they lose part of their equipment, most notably the food and medical supplies. Franklin is badly injured while scaling the cliff, the injury later becoming infected with gangrene. They find that the cliff is in fact guarded after all. Miller, a friend of Franklin, suggests that they leave Franklin to be "well cared for" by the enemy. Mallory, who assumes command of the mission, feels that Franklin would be forced to reveal their plans, so he orders two men to carry the injured man on a stretcher.

After Franklin tries to commit suicide, Mallory lies to him, saying that their mission has been "scrubbed" and that a major naval attack will be mounted on Navarone. Attacked by German soldiers, they split up, leaving Andrea behind with his sniper rifle, while they move on to their next rendezvous point. They contact local resistance workers, Spyros's sister Maria (Irene Papas) and her friend Anna (Gia Scala).

The mission is continually dogged by Germans - clearly there is a major intelligence leak - but they make their way across the rugged countryside, but are captured by German Lieutenant Muesel (Walter Gotell) when they try to find a doctor for Franklin. Muesel and later Captain Sessler (George Mikell) of the SS fail to persuade the commandos to tell them where Miller's explosives are. A ploy on Stavros' part where he pretends to betray the others and instead attacks the Germans, allows the group to overpower their captors.

They take the Germans' uniforms and leave, but leave Franklin behind so he can get medical attention. Franklin is injected with the truth drug scopolamine by Sessler and gives up the false "information", as Mallory had hoped. As a result, German units are deployed away from the guns and in the direction of the supposed "invasion" route.

While making final preparations for the destruction of the guns, Miller discovers that most of his explosives have been sabotaged and deduces that Anna is the saboteur. She pleads that she was coerced by the Germans into treachery, but while Mallory and Miller argue over her fate, complicated by Mallory's seduction by Anna the night before, Maria shoots her dead as a price of disloyalty. The team splits up to carry out their objectives: While Mallory and Miller go for the guns, Stavros and Pappadimos are to create a distraction in the city; Maria and Brown are assigned to steal a boat for their escape. Mallory and Miller find a way into the heavily fortified gun emplacements. Locking the main entrance behind them, Mallory and Miller set obvious explosives on the guns and hide more below the elevator leading to the guns. The Germans finally cut through the thick emplacement doors, but Mallory and Miller make their escape by diving into the sea. Despite Miller's inability to swim, they make it to the stolen boat, but learn that Pappadimos and Brown have been killed. Stavros is wounded and has difficulty swimming, but Mallory manages to pull him in.

The destroyers appear on schedule. The Germans remove the explosives planted on the guns and fire. The first salvo falls short. The second brackets the lead ship, which means the third will likely be on target. However, just as the guns are prepared to fire again, the elevator descends low enough to trigger the hidden explosives. The guns and fortifications are destroyed in a spectacular explosion. Franklin hears it from his hospital bed and smiles.

Mallory and Miller are taken on board the destroyer, while Stavros, who has fallen in love with Maria, decides to return to Navarone with her and shakes hands with Mallory, having given up his planned vengeance when Mallory risked his life to save him.

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The Way Ahead (1944)

War Movie Starring: David Niven,Peter Ustinov, Stanley Holloway, Trevor Howard, William Hartnell, John Laurie and Jimmy Hanley.


After an infantry battalion has suffered casualties at Dunkirk, the gaps in the ranks must be filled by `call-ups'. The men that arrive range from a boilerman and a rent collector to a nervous business man.

At the outset of World War II, a disparate group of civilians undergo basic training and prepare to fight - and die - for their country. The recruits include men from all classes, education and professions. At first, they object to their regimented lifestyle and resent the constant supervision of their training sergeant. Gradually, they learn their new skills and develop pride in what they are doing. Destined to be part of the invasion of French North Africa, their ship is nearly sunk. They soon find themselves fighting the Germans and putting their training to good use.

This is a good film that was intended to bolster morale during World War II. The cast is very good and headed by David Niven. This is a story primarily of 8 men of different backgrounds who survive their basic training and end up driving Rommel out of North Africa. The film is primarily about how men develop character when push comes to shove and there isn't a whole lot of action. Good story and worth seeing for the strong cast alone.
Memorable Quotes from the Film;

1. Pvt. Ted Brewer: Only one good man ever got into Parliament.
2. Pvt. Herbert Davenport: Oh really? Who?
3. Pvt. Ted Brewer: Bleedin' Guy Fawkes. 

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Related Trivia;

THE WAY AHEAD (1944) Directed by: Carlo Reed Cast: David Niven (Region 2 PAL Import Edition) NON-U.S. FORMAT

David Niven reports in his autobiography that the film was shown for many years for training at Sandhurst (the British Army's officer training school).

The film was still used for officer training in Australia as recently as 1983.

At the time the movie was made, David Niven, who plays a lieutenant, was actually a British Army major serving on operations in WWII.

This started life as an Army training and instructional film, "The New Lot," written by Peter Ustinov and Eric Ambler and starring some of the cast that finished up in "The Way Ahead" (Niven came in later). The training film had upset some Army top brass with its frankness and was suppressed. It has recently re-emerged thanks to a copy found in an archive.

This movie is an expanded remake of the Army Kinematograph Service film The New Lot (1943).

First cinema film of Renée Asherson.

This film's opening prologue is a quote of the definition of the word Army from Enyclopedia Brittanica. It states: "AN ARMY - A considerable body of men, armed, organised and disciplined, to act together for purposes of warfare."

This film's writers Eric Ambler and Peter Ustinov and director Carol Reed all previously worked together and made the training film, The New Lot (1943). The following actors John Laurie, Raymond Huntley and Peter Ustinov appeared in both The New Lot (1943) and this movie.

In the United States of America, this film was edited down and shortened and re-titled as "The Immortal Battalion", while an edited shorter version was also made for American television.

In the United Kingdom, this movie was released on the famous World War II date of D-Day i.e. the 6th of June, 1944.

This film stars David Niven who himself was a Major in the British Army.

Apparently, Wartime British Prime Minister Winston Churchill asked star David Niven about the possibility of making a film which would pay homage to the British Army the way In Which We Serve (1942) had paid homage to the British Navy. Niven then contacted director Carol Reed with the proposal of expanding their earlier training film, The New Lot (1943).

First film screen debut of English actor Trevor Howard in an uncredited role as an Officer on a Ship.

The book The Film Business - A history of british cinema 1896-1972 by Ernest Betts states this film " . . . was originally made as a War Office instructional film under the title The New Lot, but was later developed into a full-length commercial feature at the suggestion of Filippo Del Giudice."

According to the book A History of the Cinema from its origins to 1970 by Eric Rhode, "Eric Ambler and Peter Ustinov were commissioned to write a script that would encourage enlistment in the infantry and were obliged to show . . . skepticism give way to admiration."


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Guns of Navarone

1961 Star Studded War and Adventure Movie
In the Guns of Navarone, Gregory Peck, Anthony Quinn and David Niven and Richard Harris are the Allied saboteurs assigned to infiltrate an impregnable Nazi-held island to destroy the guns of Navarone in this thrilling World War II adventure.

1943. With the battle of Stalingrad turning the war against them, the Germans are attempting to bully neutral Turkey into joining the Axis; to this end they have trapped 2,000 British soldiers on Kiros, an island in the Aegean, with only one sea route for evacuation, a sea route commanded by two gigantic German antiship batteries deployed in a massive cliffside bunker on the island of Navarone. Immune to air attack and too much for Allied battleships to suppress, the British muster Keith Mallory, a commando officer who has been working on occupied Crete for nearly two years and who is an expert mountaineer, to ferry a team of British commandos to the only area of Navarone that is not monitored by the Germans, a 400-foot cliff. Greek resistance is to meet the team inland and guide them around German patrols to the area of the German guns. However, the commanding officer of the British team suffers grave injury in the climb and Mallory must take control of the mission, despite clashes with explosives expert John Anthony Miller, who upon the arrival of the night of the raid finds his equipment has been sabotaged, thus exposing a traitor in the team's ranks. 
The Guns of Navarone - Buy Now! (Collector's Edition)

Trivial Info;
There was reportedly much tension between many of the stars (particularly Gregory Peck and Anthony Quinn) early in the film's production, but the cast gradually bonded over endless games of chess.
Revealing mistakes: When Mallory and Miller are sitting in the truck below the guns, they use a small flashlight to illuminate the map. As they move the flashlight across the map, the circle of light stops but the flashlight continues to move for a moment after the circle of light stops moving; Mallory quickly moves it back. This shows the flashlight is not the light source on the map.

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