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
