GUNS OF NAVARONE, THE 147
aftermath in which the Japa nese hacked the dead and dying Marines to pieces
with swords. In his review of the film published in the New York Times the day
after it was released, film critic Bosley Crowther pointed up other aspects of the
movie’s shortcomings with regard to historical accuracy: “The clear weakness of
this picture is that Lamar Trotti and Jerry Cady, who prepared the script, have all
too freely rigged up a patent fiction to fit the pattern of a film. Baldly, they have
made the implication that air support did not reach Henderson Field until Oct. 14
[1942] although the fact is that we had fighters there by mid- August. Also, they
have skipped completely the battles of the Tenaru River [21 August 1942] and “The
[Edson] Ridge” [12–14 September 1942] and have saved their heavy fire and fury
for the big advance against the enemy on Nov. 10. And the historic episode of Cap-
tain Torge[r]son tossing dynamite into caves on Tulagi has been here attributed to
a heroic sergeant and geo graph i cally transplanted to Guadalcanal” (Crowther, 18
Nov. 1943).
Guns of Navarone, The (1961)
Synopsis
The Guns of Navarone is a British- American war film/adventure epic directed by J.
Lee Thompson; produced and written by Carl Foreman; and starring Gregory Peck,
David Niven, Stanley Baker, and Anthony Quinn. Based on Alistair MacLean’s 1957
novel, The Guns of Navarone, the film is about an Allied commando unit on a peril-
ous mission to destroy two outsized German cannons that threaten Allied naval
ships in the Aegean Sea.
Background
After the spectacular sales success of HMS Ulysses (Collins, 1955), a novel based
on his war experiences, Scotsman Alistair MacLean (1922–1987), a WWII British
Royal Navy veteran, went on to publish another 27 adventure- thrillers over the
next 31 years. His second novel was The Guns of Navarone (Collins, 1957), another
bestseller, inspired by the Battle of Leros (26 September–16 November 1943) dur-
ing the Dodecanese Campaign in the Aegean Sea that resulted in a German vic-
tory over Allied forces. Blacklisted screenwriter- producer Carl Foreman acquired
the film rights for his own production com pany (Open Road Films), wrote the first
draft of a screen adaptation in 1958, and secured a production deal with Colum-
bia Pictures. Foreman hoped to sign William Holden (The Bridge on the River Kwai)
in the lead role of Capt. Mallory but Holden wanted $750,000 and 10 percent of
the gross, and so he was not hired. After a raft of “A- list” actors passed on the part,
it fi nally went to Gregory Peck. Ironically, Peck secured the exact same deal that
the studio refused Holden. By March 1960 the rest of the principal roles went to a
distinguished cast: Anthony Quinn, David Niven, Anthony Quail, and Stanley
Baker. Teen idol James Darren (Gidget) was cast for youth audience appeal. Like-
wise, two Greek re sis tance fighters who were male in the novel became women in
the movie version in order to lend the picture more sex appeal. Foreman initially