The one thing preventing the Allies from rescuing them are a pair of massive guns on the island of Navarone.
The guns cannot be bombed from air or sea - only destroyed from within.
But before they can get to the guns, they will have to surmount a nigh impossible obstacle - a sheer cliff which is the only way to sneak onto the island undetected.
The clock is ticking…
This is one of the most archetypal squad-on-a-mission movies.
It is a small group of characters having to go and accomplish an impossible task. It is a template used by everything from Star Wars to Mission: Impossible.
Built off the back of one of Alistair MacLean’s best novels, Guns is not the first or best movie of its kind, but it is a platonic ideal.
Written and produced by Carl Foreman, an American exile who had to leave Hollywood due to the Blacklist, and directed by J. Lee Thompson, a respected British filmmaker who would go onto a long career in Hollywood (that would sadly bury his reputation).
In a weird way, the film of Guns reminds me of Robert Aldrich’s adaptation of Mike Hammer, Kiss Me Deadly, in that it adapts the plot, and de-contextualizes the characters and plot points to arrive at a different meaning.
Kiss Me Deadly is doing something very different from this movie - there is no subversion here. If anything the filmmakers just flesh out the characters more, and make the story more of a meditation on the cost of war.
Starting with narration that recasts the film as a modern myth, a tale worthy of the Greek legends of old, it also punctures that idea - this is not a story of gods, but mortal men.
That being said, aligning this story in mythic terms, specifically Hellenic myth, works in another way - Greek Gods and heroes are defined by their flaws, and how they are unable to avoid their fate.
Such is the lot of Mallory and his team - they do not want to be here.
Mallory is haunted - literally and figuratively - by Anthony Quinn’s Andrea, always at his shoulder, a shadow of his past failure. And Miller, the explosives genius, is disturbed by the idea of killing someone in close quarters and in cold blood.
Their conflict is the central one throughout the movie, as they debate whether the goal justifies harsher tactics - such as killing a wounded teammate who might slow their progress.
Though it runs over two hours, Guns of Navarone does not waste a frame.
While the mission and its objectives are never in doubt, the film manages to balance the stakes of the mission with the personal crises of the characters.
The film’s thematic concerns are elegantly filtered through the various obstacles the team face during the mission - coming to a head when Miller dares Mallory to murder the traitor in their midst.
The ensemble cast are terrific.
Going against his matinee idol looks, Gregory Peck gives the character a withdrawn, shrunken physicality. Mallory is a man drained by his memories and regrets.
Quinn is unreadable, bringing a terse, darkly comic edge to Andrea.
David Niven is solid as Miller - he might not have the fire that the role implies, but he works as a man out of his element.
While the acting is solid, it is as an action adventure that Guns of Navarone stands out.
Even 70 years later, there is a pace and tension to the action which remains impressive. And unlike a lot of action movies, it manages to get more exciting as it goes along. And despite their various skills, the team sustains a bodycount.
Despite the pyrotechnics, and Dimitri Tiomkin’s triumphant score, the film ends triumphant but with an edge of melancholia, as our exhausted heroes take a breather on the deck of a destroyer.
Director J Lee Thompson had cut his teeth on a variety of films, and he brings a sense of suspense and intimacy to the action which prevents it from coming across as pure spectacle. Perhaps it is watching so many movies of this sort, but what stands out about Guns of Navarone is how focused it is on playing the action out from the characters’ point of view.
I first watched this movie over twenty years ago, and Guns of Navarone remains a good time.
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