The Guns of Navarone (1961)
Directed by J. Lee Thompson
A team of allied saboteurs are assigned an impossible mission: infiltrate an impregnable Nazi-held island and destroy the two enormous long-range field guns that prevent the rescue of 2,000 trapped British soldiers.
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What critics compared The Guns of Navarone to
The story was inspired, according to Knoll, by World War II adventure films that had energized Lucas, pictures like The Dam Busters (1955) and The Guns of Navarone (1961).
The action scenes are exhilarating — including a battle on the planet Scarif, idyllic enough to look like it was torn from a Club Med pamphlet, which takes up the entire third act and pays homage to classic war movies like "The Guns of Navarone."
Star Wars took direct inspiration from the behind-enemy-lines "men on a mission" pictures of his youth, like 1955’s The Dam Busters and 1961’s The Guns of Navarone.
Written by Chris Weitz and Tony Gilroy, "Rogue One" harkens back to classic Hollywood war films like "The Guns of Navarone" and "Saving Private Ryan."
It’s not quite “Band of Brothers in Space,” but it does channel a little bit from the likes of “The Guns of Navarone” and “The Dirty Dozen” among others.
The long battle sequence is replete with close shaves, daring escapes, sudden reversals, acts of self-sacrifice and a sudden intervention by friends (no “Star Wars” movie worth its salt would do without plenty of combat between armadas of space ships), but ultimately the entire scenario comes down to a protracted sci-fi version of pictures like “The Guns of Navarone,” in which a ragtag bunch of heroes take on a presumably invincible foe to destroy a weapon of unimaginable magnitude.
Although Mr. Thompson, whose other credits included "The Guns of Navarone" and "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes," moved the first "Cape Fear" along in simple, linear fashion, Mr. Scorsese did not rely heavily upon the original.
Under the workmanlike direction of J. Lee Thompson (“Cape Fear,” 1961) from the script by producer Carl Foreman, which is based on the best-seller by Alistair MacLean, it becomes your typical crowd pleasing war film that questions wartime heroics but exploits their actions as part of its draw.
That's the first pillar of the script: a men-on-a-mission movie, like The Dirty Dozen, Where Eagles Dare or The Guns of Navarone, only with more shocking violence.
All Quiet on the Western Front ) the odd film out among countless movies that made viewers take delight in the wartime exploits of our fighting men ( The Dirty Dozen , The Guns of Navarone , Where Eagles Dare , and on and on and on).
Some of the movies Tarantino alludes to are The Big Red One, The Dirty Dozen, The Guns of Navarone, To Be or Not to Be, Sergeant York, and a bevy of others.
With its grace and economy of narrative, "Apollo 13" resembles those grand old military exploits - "The Guns of Navarone," "The Dirty Dozen," "The Great Escape" and "Seven Days in May."
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Cinematically, Gunn draws on all the gritty men-on-a-mission war movies of his childhood ( The Dirty Dozen , The Guns of Navarone , Where Eagles Dare ).