Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2289 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-02-12
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Box set, PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Dutch, Hindi
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 150 minutes

Amazon.com
This rousing, explosive 1961 WWII adventure, based on Alistair MacLean's thrilling novel, turns the war thriller into a deadly caper film. Gregory Peck heads a star-studded cast charged with a near impossible mission: destroy a pair of German guns nestled in a protective cave on the strategic Mediterranean island of Navarone, from where they can control a vital sea passage. As world famous mountaineer turned British army Captain Mallory, Peck leads a guerrilla force composed of the humanistic explosives expert, Miller (David Niven), the ruthless Greek patriot with a grudge, Stavros (Anthony Quinn), veteran special forces soldier Brown (Stanley Baker) and the cool, quiet young marksman Pappadimos (James Darren). This disparate collection of classic types must overcome internal conflicts, enemy attacks, betrayal, and capture to complete their mission. Director J. Lee Thompson sets a driving pace for this exciting (if familiar) military operation, a succession of close calls, pitched battles, and last-minute escapes as our heroes infiltrate the garrisoned town with the help of resistance leader Maria (Irene Papas) and plot their entry into the heavily guarded mountain fort. Carl Foreman's screenplay embraces MacLean's role call of clichés and delivers them with style, creating one of the liveliest mixes of espionage, combat, and good old-fashioned military derring-do put on film. In 1978, the sequel Force 10 from Navarone was released, but MacLean fans will prefer to check out the action-packed thriller Where Eagles Dare. --Sean Axmaker

Synopsis
War film based on a novel by Alistair Maclean, which tells of the attempts of a British raiding team to sabotage two giant German guns on a Turkish island in the Aegean Sea. One of the great war movies of all time, with an all start cast, and a gripping plot.

Customer Reviews

A great DVD
Incredible value for the money - the film has been properly restored and the Technicolor looks amazing. Disc two has some nice extras, both of the reminicence-interview type and some unusual B&W featurettes shot at the time. There's also a look at Tiomkin's score and the chance to see and hear the prologue without the narration. Christopher Frayling discusses the film in a way that makes you want to watch it all over again immediately. Heroes, anti-heroes, action, a long, thin thread of melancholy and a beautiful last scene - this has it all.

FANTASTIC !
i sat down to watch the guns of navarone and my initial thought was how dated it now looked but within 15 minutes your up to your eyeballs in total enjoyment , the main cast are all outstanding and this is a true wartime classic that simply gets top marks .
this film alongside -the bridge on the river kwai , von ryans express , the great escape , a bridge too far , and the devils brigade should be the starting point for your wartime collection their all top rate.

Comprehensive extras, but restoration is only partially successful
I won't say too much about the film itself, which is approaching 50 years old, except to say that the performances of all the cast appearing in this well executed WWII thriller are extremely high quality. Anthony Quinn, Gregory Peck and David Niven in particular really do act their socks off (Stanley Baker also stands out, despite having less to work with). The actors are helped greatly by a fine script, which only lets itself down during the first 15 minutes with some rather naive moralising from James Robertson Justice, and a shocking "cameo" from Richard Harris, complete with badly judged Australian accent (and some pretty flowery language for the period). However, when the plot starts rolling the combination of excellent dialogue and scorching acting make it very difficult to take your eyes of the screen. In fact, the action scenes struggle to compete with all this finely crafted drama.

It's always good when a classic like this receives a 2 disc special edition, and there's a wonderfully exhaustive library of Documentaries and period Featurettes on the second disc. It was very enjoyable to hear Peck and Quinn reminisce of their time on what appears to have been a happy set, what a shame many of the rest of the cast are no longer with us to share their thoughts.

Interestingly, one of the docs concerns the restoration of the film. I was actually very disappointed with this transfer of The Guns of Navarone, which I thought was grubby, much too grainy, rather gloomy, and also suffered from poor colour and contrast. I've recently seen Ice Station Zebra and Where Eagles Dare on DVD (two other MacLean thrillers from the sixties), and although they've not received a restoration to my knowledge, image quality is strong. The Bond films of the era have of course received stunning restorations using the Lowry digital process, and look wonderful. It is certainly obvious from the doc that a lot of work was done; an improvement is noticeable when comparisons are shown, and they have also corrected a long standing error at the beginning of the film regarding night-time shooting. The doc also makes it clear that the original print was in a very sorry condition. However, I'm not convinced that the restoration has gone far enough.

The new Dolby 5.1 soundtrack is a great success though, with clear, weighty speech, room shaking bass in the action scenes, and also plenty of subtle detail. Dimitri Tiomkin's score sounds wonderful in this re-mastered form, but why remove the Intermission music? It is available as an isolated chapter on the bonus disc, and the restoration doc points out that the film was rarely shown with it included, but I'd prefer to have the choice. After all, if I don't want to hear it I can just skip it.

A flawed release then in my opinion, let down by a restoration that I think is only half successful. Hopefully, with new techniques applied such as Lowry's, a more thorough job can be done in time for its release on Blu-Ray.