Review of The Guns of Navarone (1961) by Steve S — 22 Nov 2014

"The Guns of Navarone" places a group of hard-boiled Allied saboteurs into scenarios that require them to put their civilian instincts for compassion aside for the sake of the mission. Whole other, milder, happier lives seem implicit in these characters' sad glances and careful movements, and Gregory Peck and Anthony Quayle in particular convey with great subtlety that their characters would rather be comfortably behind desks-not to preserve their own safety, which they put unhesitatingly at risk, but to prevent them from having to make difficult decisions about the lives of other members of their top-secret team.

The casting of well-known, likable actors such as David Niven, Gregory Peck, and Anthony Quinn is essential for the impact of the story's cloak-and-dagger twists, in which agonizing personal decisions and private anxieties are brought to the fore.

The Nazis are of course fearful villains, especially in a tense interrogation scene, and their heavy gun emplacement targeted for sabotage makes for a great set piece backdrop, but in a departure from other war films of the period these elements are almost a sideshow here.

At the heart of the film instead are the dynamics within the Allied infiltration team itself, and the team's efforts to navigate, in good faith, the situations that require them to regard as expendable anyone who threatens the success of the mission-including injured or untrustworthy members of their own team.

These personalized stakes make "Navarone" among the most tense and uncompromising war movies I've seen.