Penned by Carl Foreman, director J. Lee Thompson’s The Guns of Navarone (1961) is an exhilarating WWII espionage thriller. Loosely based on Alistair McLean's novel, the film stars quintessential man of integrity Gregory Peck as Captain Keith Mallory, a staunchly determined strategist assigned the near impossible task of taking a crack team of military misfits to a remote German stronghold on Kiros to blow up the Nazis' impregnable fortress. That team includes embittered explosives expert, Cpl. Miller (David Niven), feisty Col. Andrea Stavros (Anthony Quinn), pragmatic Maj. Roy Franklin (Anthony Quayle) and rookie solider, Pvt. Spyros Pappadimo (James Darren). The mission is hardly fool proof.
Fate is anything but on the expedition’s side. After their modest fishing vessel is wrecked during a violent storm, the troops are besieged by one enemy assault after another. Franklin is wounded, but Mallory refuses to give in, give up or leave his superior officer behind. Instead, and together with resistance fighters Maria Pappadimos (Irene Papas) and Anna (Gia Scala), the surviving members attempt to make inroads toward Kiros.
But a traitor is in their midst, one who repeatedly leaks their whereabouts to the Nazis and forces the soldiers into hiding until they are ambushed by at an outdoor Greek wedding reception. Eventually, Mallory makes his break. Stavros exposes Anna as the traitor and Mallory is forced to assassinate her. Next, Stavros, Miller, Pappadimo and Mallory make their way to the Nazis' fortress. After exchanging gunfire, Mallory and Miller make it inside and set about rigging the two massive guns pointed toward the sea with explosives, just as an armada of allied ships are approaching off the coast.
The Guns of Navarone is a fictional tale of heroism. No such fortress or mission to destroy it ever existed. But Foreman's writing makes the story real even if history suggests otherwise. The authenticity of the exercise is mirrored in the eyes of each protagonist. We believe the story as fact, mostly because Gregory Peck, Tony Quinn, David Niven et al. sell the concept not merely as high film art but definitive history, even in the face of history itself - and that's no small achievement!
For years, The Guns of Navarone was shown on television with its opening sequence misprinted. Immediately following the credits, a plane is seen landing on a runway (shot day for night). During the theatrical engagement, the plane lands at night. On television, it lands in broad daylight. In the mid-1990s, Columbia contacted UCLA restoration expert, Robert Gitt to aid in the preservation of this immortal and much beloved film for future generations.
The restoration then was accomplished without the added benefit of a digital frame-by-frame clean up. In 1999, Columbia released The Guns of Navarone to DVD in a less than stellar incarnation, with bumped up contrast levels, faded flesh tones, weak colors, shimmering of fine details and considerable grain directly imported into the transfer.
Now, Sony Home Video has really gone to town. The results are superb beyond all expectation. Let's get something straight. The Guns of Navarone will never be pristine. Decades of neglect, poor film stock, film processing and even poorer storage have all but ensured that this film classic was almost lost to us for all time. Thankfully, Sony has gone back to the drawing board, employing state of the art digital restoration techniques on first generation Cinemascope elements. (The original camera negative no longer exists.)The results are, for the most part successful.
The restoration has been a major undertaking and a long time coming. Day for night photography is still problematic with a considerable amount of film grain present. But the naturally lit outdoor photography on the Blu-ray is a revelation. Flesh tones that once appeared pasty orange have been brought back into line and are very natural looking throughout. Colours are, at times, startlingly vibrant. The Greek wedding ambush blew me away with its stark white building facades and lush green foliage. Gia Scala's eyes just before her execution struck me in all their coral blue brilliance. Visually, The Guns of Navarone is a winner even if filmic elements are fundamentally flawed.
Sony has also done wonders with the original 4-track stereo, herein represented as DTS-HD 5.1. Again, it isn't crystal clear, but it is light years ahead of anything the film has sounded like on home video - ever - period!
The one new extra is 'the resistance dossier' - a beautifully composed series of featurettes that are brief but poignant. For the rest, Sony gives us all of the featurettes and documentaries that came with their deluxe 2-disc DVD from several years ago. None of these older extras have been cleaned up so don't expect high quality video or audio. Still, given Sony's base price for this vintage catalogue title and the immeasurable efforts put forth to restore the film to 'almost' its opening night splendour make me want to stand up and cheer. The Guns of Navarone Blu-ray is a no-brainer must have/must own. Highly recommended!
FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)
5+
VIDEO/AUDIO
4
EXTRAS
3.5
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