The Guns of Navarone (1961)

James Robertson Justice: Jensen, Prologue Narrator

Photos 

Quotes 

• Cohn : Do you think they've got any chance at all, sir?

  Commodore Jensen : Frankly, no. Not a chance in the world. I should be very surprised if they get even halfway to Navarone. Just a waste of six good men. However, I suppose that doesn't matter, considering how many have been wasted already. I'm glad it's not my decision; I'm only the middleman... Still, they may get there, and they may pull it off. Anything can happen in a war. Slap in the middle of absolute insanity people pull out the most extraordinary resources: ingenuity, courage, self-sacrifice. Pity we can't meet the problems of peace in the same way, isn't it? It would be so much cheaper for everybody.

  Cohn : I never thought of it in just that way, sir. You're a philosopher, sir.

  Commodore Jensen : No. I'm just the man who has to send people out on jobs like this one.

• Commodore Jensen : Gentlemen, these men have a special interest in Navarone. I got your radio report, but I thought perhaps you could be more specific.

  Squadron Leader Howard Barnsby RAAF : I'll be specific! As you can plainly see, it was ruddy awful. But we'd love to go back. Wouldn't we, boys?

  [His boys give several loud cheers] 

  Squadron Leader Howard Barnsby RAAF : Just as soon as we can! BUT - we've got one condition. We want the joker who thought this one up to come with us. And when we get there, we're gonna shove him out at ten thousand feet - without a parachute.

• [first lines] 

  Prologue Narrator : Greece and the islands of the Aegean Sea have given birth to many myths and legends of war and adventure. And these once-proud stones, these ruined and shattered temples bear witness to the civilization that flourished and then died here and to the demigods and heroes who inspired those legends on this sea and these islands. But, though the stage is the same, ours is a legend of our own times, and its heroes are not demigods, but ordinary people. In 1943, so the story goes, 2000 British soldiers lay marooned on the tiny island of Kheros, exhausted and helpless. They had exactly one week to live for in Berlin the Axis high command had determined on a show of strength in the Aegean Sea to bully neutral Turkey into coming into the war on their side. The scene of that demonstration was to be Kheros, itself of no military value, but only a few miles off the coast of Turkey. The cream of the German war machine, rested and ready, was to spearhead the attack, and the men on Kheros were doomed unless they could be evacuated before the blitz. But the only passage to and from Kheros was guarded and blocked by two great, newly designed, radar-controlled guns on the nearby island of Navarone. Guns too powerful and accurate for any allied ship then in the Aegean to challenge. Allied intelligence learned of the projected blitz only one week before the appointed date. What took place in the next six days became the legend of Navarone.

• Squadron Leader Howard Barnsby RAAF : BAD? It can't be done, not from the air, anyway!

  Commodore Jensen : You're quite sure of that, Squadron Leader? This is important.

  Squadron Leader Howard Barnsby RAAF : So's my life! To me, anyway, and the lives of these jokers here, and the eighteen men we lost tonight!

• Commodore Jensen : [about Franklin]  Of course, he himself is ideal for the job. He's highly experienced and extremely capable - don't blush, Roy - and most of all, he's lucky. Aren't you lucky, Roy?

  Major Franklin : If you say so, sir.

  Commodore Jensen : I do, I do indeed. Wasn't it Napoleon who said, when somebody was up for promotion to general, "yes, yes, I know he's brilliant, but is he lucky?" The Emperor knew the value of luck, and our Roy seems to have it.

  Major Franklin : Then make me a general, sir.

  Commodore Jensen : Patience, my dear boy, patience.