Kirdyk to the Germans 1943, Mediterranean. Britain conducted a failed operation to capture the Greek archipelago of the Dodecanese, and is now preparing to evacuate 2,000 of its marines stranded on one of the islets. However, in order to get people out of there, the British destroyers will have to pass through one single fairway adjacent to another island - the impregnable Navarone, on which a strong garrison and a powerful battery of two giant guns sweeping everything before it. To destroy these miracle guns from the air, the British have no possibility - the battery is right in the rock. Therefore, the command goes on a frank adventure and sends 6 Marines to the island under the leadership of the climber Mallory. The group will have to “just” swim to the protected island, climb a steep cliff, shoot the German garrison and blow up guns. And so that it is not easy, there will be a traitor in the group.
The whole story of six daredevils who single-handedly scattered a whole garrison of Germans was invented from beginning to end by the noble English writer Alistair MacLean, who invented literally everything, including even the non-existent island of Navarone. From plausibility, we can mention only the Dodecanese operation, but the Anglo-Americans lost to the Germans. Moreover, if you wish, you can even criticize the general plot of this story. Well, for example, under no circumstances can only two cannons destroy as many as six destroyers - just do not have time. Or why wouldn't the same destroyer go under smoke cover? Finally, what prevents the evacuation to be carried out on the other side of the island, and even if the fairway did not allow there, marines to destroyers could be delivered by boats and boats. After all, it is strange that the evacuation is carried out on destroyers at all - there are transport ships for this. But, friends, this is all sophistry that has nothing to do with this tape.
The work of the Englishman Lee Thompson bribes primarily with his adventure adventure. This is a fundamentally new view on the formation of the canons of military adventure films. Here you can clearly see the transition from pathos-epic dramas to individual-hero cinema, in which the outcome of the mission is secondary in itself, and the main thing is the course of the road movie itself. Storm, checks sentries, sheer cliffs, endless shootouts, intrigue with a traitor in a group that generally recruited hot on the trail, mining the object ... By and large, it was in 1961 that Thompson approached the format of modern adventure cinema, which exists to this day. Episodically something similar was created earlier, you can recall, for example, “Five Tombs on the Way to Cairo” by Billy Wilder, filmed back in 1943 (by the way, in the year when the events of this film took place), but Tomposn also visually modernized his production.
Regarding the star cast - Gregory Peck, David Niven, Anthony Quinn - it, given the visually exciting concept of the film, was not even mandatory. Moreover, as for me, Thompson pulled a lot of recognizable stars, endowed them with completely uncharacteristic types of actors. The least concerned Anthony Quinn, who, perhaps, played the most vivid role of the offended Greek colonel-lone. But always intelligently correct Gregory Peck lacked brutality as a group leader commandos. Even more fell out type David Niven, who played a prank bomber who hates war. Gregory Peck, 45, told David Niven, 51, “Son, your time standing out of the war is over.” You're up to your neck now.” David Niven once on the “son” in 61 was already very weak.
Enough in the film and other “wonderful moments” – this is the frank narcissistic adornment in the German form of the main characters (after all, we must admit in the Third Reich in terms of aesthetics was complete order), and flashing some incredibly stupid Nazis who alternately catch and lose brazen saboteurs ... But the main advantage of this film is that it is digested in almost one breath. And although decades later we can say for sure that the fundamental in the genre of military films “Guns of Navaron Island” and did not become, but it should also be admitted that Thompson’s tape as a whole made a noticeable impact on the formation of adventure cinema.
It is strange that the Germans even survived the war until 1943, because judging by this tape, they were all to be slain by two hundred British Marines. But if we leave the irony, the British came out a very cool and exciting film, which set a new pace for the entire adventure genre.
7 out of 10