Live Life Team
Genre: War
Director: J. Lee Thompson
Starring: Gregory Peck, David Niven, Stanley Baker
A unit of commandos comprised of Allied and Greek soldiers, each with special skills, is formed by British intelligence with the task of performing the near impossible feat of destroying the almost un-breakable German artillery cannons hidden far within solid rock on the Greek island of Navarone.
The six man Special Forces team consists of mountaineer Corporal Miller, Greek resistance man Andrea Stravos, British Major Franklin, young sniper Private Pappadimos and ruthless assassin CPO Brown. Although the group are trapped by the Germans they engineer an escape and, wearing stolen Nazi uniforms, the unit eventually arrive at the town of Navarone to complete their mission. This film is a blast a minute war story, which includes gory hand to hand fighting between the heroes and the Nazis, a huge tsunami, and our good guys climbing dangerously sheer cliff tops. The film was mostly shot on location in Rhodes on the Aegean Sea.
All this combined to make The Guns of Navarone a fantastic success upon its release in 1961 and it certainly remains as one of the better movies of its genre. Its action sequences seemed to speak louder than words, though the script said much about the many devotions and inspirations of the assembled characters played by a superb cast with David Niven nearly stealing the limelight as the cynical and cowardly commando. The Guns of Navarone led to many imitations, none really ever hitting these heights.
