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Category:    Home > Reviews > Documentary > Filmmaking > Making Of The Guns Of Navarone

The Making of (J. Lee Thompson’s) THE GUNS OF NAVARONE

 

Picture: C     Sound: C     Extras: D     Main Program: B-

 

 

Gregory Peck was at the top of his game by the early 1960s, and just coming off of On The Beach (1959) was about to produce a large-scale WWII action-adventure film.  J. Lee Thompson, one of the all-time great and reliable journeymen filmmakers in Hollywood history was hired to helm the project, and when the casting of greats like David Niven, Anthony Quinn, and Richard Harris were joined by the likes of Anthony Quale, Stanley Baker, Irene Pappas, singer James Darren, also-director Bryan Forbes and future Bond-film regular Walter Gotell, the result was the classic The Guns Of Navarone (1961).

 

Spanning nearly two-and-a-half hours, it was based on the Alistar MacLean novel and wound up nabbing the Academy Award for Special Visual Effects.  It earned it.  This new Making of DVD offers the same featurettes as the special edition (Sony) Columbia/TriStar DVD, but has an interview with Darren, trailer collections showing the careers of Peck and Quinn (though not of Peck’s Arabesque and none of David Niven, which is a big omission), and trailers for some other key War genre films of the time that were also actioners.  The film was shot in CinemaScope.  It would have even been nice if they explained that better.

 

The various aspect ratios on the DVD average out in picture quality, while the Dolby Digital 2.0 is usually Mono.  The box claims surrounds, but they simply do not exist here.  The menu has the irritating problem of the highlighting not being bright enough, so you have to look close to get use to it.  They did not make to distinct enough shades of green.  Scene selection will give you full access.

 

That leaves one to wonder why you might want this DVD if the highlights of the actual film are on its DVD already.  Besides the big price difference, there is the issue of Sony doing a Superbit DVD version of the film with better picture and sound.  If so, it may NOT have these extras, so it will depend on if you wait for that or get the current edition, or even just want the other features here.  It is cheap, though, so that’s not bad.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo


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