The Guns of Navarone

IMDb RATING

7.5/10

57K

YOUR RATING

David Niven, Gregory Peck, and Anthony Quinn in The Guns of Navarone (1961)

Watch the trailer for The Guns of Navarone, starring Gregory Peck.

Play trailer3:41

1 Video

99+ Photos

Dark Comedy War Epic Action Adventure Drama War

A team of Allied saboteurs is assigned an impossible mission: infiltrate an impregnable Nazi-held Greek island and destroy the two enormous long-range field guns that prevent the rescue of 2... Read allA team of Allied saboteurs is assigned an impossible mission: infiltrate an impregnable Nazi-held Greek island and destroy the two enormous long-range field guns that prevent the rescue of 2,000 trapped British soldiers.A team of Allied saboteurs is assigned an impossible mission: infiltrate an impregnable Nazi-held Greek island and destroy the two enormous long-range field guns that prevent the rescue of 2,000 trapped British soldiers.

Director
- J. Lee Thompson
Writers
- Alistair MacLean
- Carl Foreman
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.5/10

57K

YOUR RATING

Director
- J. Lee Thompson
Writers
- Alistair MacLean
- Carl Foreman
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

Won 1 Oscar
- 4 wins & 12 nominations total

Videos1

Trailer 3:41

The Guns of Navarone: Trailer

Photos167

+ 159

‘Snow White’ Stars Test Their Wits

Rachel Zegler, Gal Gadot, and director Marc Webb take our Ultimate Disney Quiz.

Watch now

9:57

More like this

6.4

Force 10 from Navarone

7.6

7.7

7.6

7.7

7.4

6.9

8.1

The Bridge on the River Kwai

7.5

Tora! Tora! Tora!

7.7

The Magnificent Seven

7.7

Zulu

6.8

Battle of the Bulge

Storyline

Edit

Did you know

Edit

Trivia
This was the only time that David Niven ever smoked cigarettes on-screen. Niven was a life-long non-smoker.

Goofs
When the Germans are searching the gun positions for explosives, German soldiers are using mine detection equipment and sweeping the tracks leading up to the guns. This is a useless activity since the detection equipment is a metal detector and would give off a signal due to the steel rails.

Quotes
Mallory: Can you do anything at all?
Corporal Miller: I don't know. There's always a way to blow up explosives. The trick is not to be around when they go off. But aren't you forgetting something? The lady. As I see it we have three choices. One we can leave her here but there's no guarantee she won't be found, and in her case they won't need a truth drug. Two, we can take her with us, but that would make things worse than they are already. And three... well, that's Andrea's choice, remember?
Mallory: You really want your pound of flesh, don't you?
Corporal Miller: Yes, I do. You see, somehow I just couldn't get to sleep.
Mallory: Well, if you're so anxious to kill her, go ahead!
Corporal Miller: I'm not anxious to kill her, I'm not anxious to kill anyone. You see, I'm not a born soldier. I was trapped. You may find me facetious from time to time, but if I didn't make some rather bad jokes I'd go out of my mind. No, I prefer to leave the killing to someone like you, an officer and a gentleman, a leader of men.
Mallory: If you think I wanted this, any of this, you're out of your mind, I was trapped like you, just like anyone who put on the uniform!
Corporal Miller: Of *course* you wanted it, you're an officer, aren't you? I never let them make *me* an officer! I don't want the responsibility!
Mallory: So you've had a free ride, all this time! Someone's *got* to take responsibility if the job's going to get done! You think that's easy?
Corporal Miller: [shouts] I don't know! I'm not even sure who really is responsible any more.

Crazy credits
Opening credits prologue: The first day 02.00 Hours An Allied Airfield somewhere in the Middle East

Alternate versions
To receive a 'U' certificate the original UK cinema version was overdubbed to remove all of Barnsby's uses of the word 'bloody' (the word was replaced with the less offensive 'ruddy'), and this same print appeared on early video releases. The film was restored in 1993 and all later widescreen releases feature the full unedited version.

Connections
Edited into Force 10 from Navarone (1978)

Soundtracks
Karagouna
(uncredited)
Traditional

User reviews214

Featured review

Never forgot it

I saw this film with my father at an outdoor theater when it first appeared.

Remember those?

When those two German cannons stretched across the screen, they must have been at least eighty feet long. The special effects of films in those days might have been primitive compared to now, but those days had a trick or two up their sleeve to make the most of them, that we can no longer experience.

And outdoor theaters might as have well have been invented and built for this movie. I can't remember a more suspenseful cinematic experience in my whole life-- or a more dramatic night out with Dad. I was glad that he was there, just a reassuring foot or two away, in case the terror became unbearable.

So it surprised me to learn here that Guns of Navarone appeared only in 1961. That would make me twelve or thirteen years old, not eight. If I remember it so vividly, how could I be so wrong about the time? Perhaps this is further testimony to its impact-- how small and vulnerable it can make one feel in its sweep of events.