Plot
In 1943, during the middle of the Second World War (1939–1945), Major Keith Mallory and Sergeant Donovan "Dusty" Miller from the British Army Special Forces / commandos are sent to find and eliminate Nicolai, a Nazi German spy who previously betrayed the earlier Guns of Navarone mission to the occupying Nazi Germans in Greece, of the Aegean Sea cliffside artillery battery fortification. Nicolai is now believed to have successfully infiltrated the anti-Nazi communist/Marxist guerrilla Yugoslav Partisans bands. The German spy is now known to the guerrilla Partisans as a "Captain Lescovar". To get to Yugoslavia east across the Adriatic Sea from Allied armies in Allied-occupied southern Italy to the Balkans Mountains peninsula of Southeastern Europe. The two men now pair up with "Force 10", an American Army sabotage commando unit led by United States Army Rangers, Lieutenant Colonel Mike Barnsby and steal a British Royal Air Force Lancaster bomber from a British RAF air field. They are joined by Weaver, a U.S. Army Medical Corps sergeant who was arrested by the Military Police, and escaped, only to be shot down by the Luftwaffe. Only Barnsby, Mallory, Miller, Weaver, and Lieutenant Doug Reynolds (Angus MacInnes) make it out and escape the crippled plane in a crash landing.
The survivors come upon a band of men they believe to be the Yugoslavian Partisans, who are mostly Communist, and probable allies. But the unit is later suddenly trapped and surprised as their helpers are actually revealed to be opposing pro-German collaborationist Chetniks, led by Captain Drazak. Taken prisoner, they tell the German army commander in control of the area, Major Schroeder, that they are actually Allied deserters. To keep Schroeder from opening Miller's suitcase that he's carrying, stuffed with high explosives, Mallory claims it contains the newly developed and top-secret penicillin, which will spoil if opened and exposed. The next morning, the prisoners are told that Schroeder has already opened the case, finding it full of firewood. They improvise an elaborated second excuse, claiming they buried the drug samples. Schroeder sends Barnsby and Mallory to retrieve them under the guard of his concubine woman guerrilla fighter Maritza along with three soldiers. Miller, Weaver, and Reynolds are left behind in camp.
Far from camp, Maritza switches over loyalties, revealing herself to be actually a true partisan and the person who had originally hid the explosives from the suitcase. She directs Mallory and Barnsby further off towards the real Partisan camp, which happens to be under the command of her father, Major Petrovich. Mallory and Barnsby escape and meet another patrol of real Yugoslav Partisans led by Lescovar, who has gained Petrovich's trust. Mallory and Barnsby are taken to their camp, which lies near a hydroelectric power generating dam. An arch bridge spanning the deep river ravine is set to be used by a coming German force for an impending assault on the partisans camp, who have been unable to destroy the bridge before. Barnsby reveals that the bridge is actually Force 10's assigned mission target.
Mallory convinces Petrovich to mount a rescue mission of demolitions expert Miller back at the Chetnik camp, using Lescovar and Marko, another loyal partisan. The four re-enter the Chetnik guerrilla camp at night, with Mallory and Barnsby posing as captives, and Yugoslavs Lescovar and Marko disguised as Chetniks escorting them. Captain Drazak discovers that the woman Maritza must have betrayed and helped Miller and Mallory escape, and he begins beating her viciously. Schroeder and Reynolds are killed in a gun battle, but the others escape with a badly beaten and hurt Maritza and with the recovered explosives.
Miller reveals that the strongly built bridge is impregnable, which Barnsby refuses to accept. Mallory hits upon the better idea of destroying the upstream dam, to use the sudden onrush flood of millions of gallons of water to do their work for them and wash out destroying the bridge. A night-time parachute air drop is arranged by radio with Allied Air Forces to replace Force 10's lost supplies, but Lescovar, revealed to be the saboteur, calls in German warplanes to stop the drop. Maritza catches Lescovar in the act, but he kills her before she can warn the others, and so German planes bomb the illuminated drop zone.
Petrovich, angered by the botched air drop, orders the men to be sent to Partisan commander Marshal Josip Broz Tito's headquarters for transport back to Italy. Accompanied by Lescovar and Marko, the team instead infiltrates the German railroad marshaling yards to steal explosives there. Lescovar again betrays them, alerting a German sergeant to their presence. Marko sacrifices himself to save the others, who then escape with Lescovar aboard a train leaving for Sarajevo. Lescovar is questioned by the others, who have finally grown more suspicious of him. Lescovar initially denies the accusations, but gives himself away and is shot dead by Barnsby, who then asks Mallory to return the favour by helping him accomplish Force 10's additional mission.
Jumping the train near the dam, the team splits up: Miller and Weaver run a diversion, while Mallory and Barnsby sneak into the dam structure. Weaver runs into Captain Drazak and kills him in a knife fight. Mallory and Barnsby set their charges within the concrete dam; its structural integrity compromised by the blast, the dam wall bursts, releasing a torrent of water that also topples the bridge downstream. The German assault is thwarted, saving Petrovich and the partisan guerrillas.
Mallory and Barnsby rejoin Miller and Weaver, but Mallory reminds the others they are trapped on the wrong side of the river. As the closing film credits roll, the men begin a strenuous journey back to friendly Allied territory.
Production
Initial development
There had been plans to produce the film shortly after the 1961 film, with Gregory Peck and David Niven reprising their roles. Following the success of the original film, producer Carl Foreman asked MacLean to write a hardcover sequel novel on which a follow-up film would be based, but the author was reluctant to write an entire novel and instead delivered a screen treatment.
In April 1967 Foreman announced he would make After Navarone with Anthony Quinn, Gregory Peck, and David Niven reprising their roles and J Lee Thompson returning as director. The film would be made by Columbia.[5] In May 1967 it was announced the film would be called The High Dam and filming would take place in 1969.[6] Filming, however, did not proceed: MacLean decided to develop the screen treatment as a book; he published Force 10 from Navarone in 1968, and the novel became a best seller.[7]
Throughout the 1970s Foreman tried to get financial backing for the film. In December 1972 MacLean said Foreman's plan was to use the original cast, but commented, "they'll look a bit old for the war now."[8]
Financing
In September 1976 it was announced Foreman, Oliver Unger and the German finance company, Mondo Films, had acquired the screen rights to the novel and screenplay Force 10 from Navarone.[9] Foreman wrote the treatment and served as executive producer, but Unger wound up producing.[3]
The producers wanted Robert Bolt to write the screenplay but he was busy working with David Lean. Bolt's agent Peggy Ramsey suggested they hire Robin Chapman.[10]
In August 1977, the production company set up to make the movie, Navarone Productions, signed an agreement with AIP for the latter to distribute the film. AIP provided $2.1 million of the budget.[11]
The film was originally budgeted at $8,312,224. AIP provided $2,104,942.93 to Navarone Productions and subsequently spent an additional $97,109.15 to produce a U.S. version of the film. Columbia Pictures advanced $2.9 million and agreed to pay an additional $1.1 million after delivery of the film in return for the exclusive and perpetual distribution rights in all territories outside the United States and Canada. A German investment group contributed $1 million, a Yugoslavian production company lent or provided services equal to $2 million; and American Broadcasting Company paid $1.8 million for the right to broadcast the motion picture three times on network television.[11]
Cinematographer Christopher Challis recalled that the film was originally considered to be filmed in Pakistan until someone realised that Pakistanis did not resemble Yugoslavians or Germans and the expense to make them appear as such on film would be financially prohibitive.[12]
Casting
By the time film was to start, 17 years after the original, Peck and Niven were considered too old and the decision was made to recast.
By October 1977 the main cast had been settled: Robert Shaw, Edward Fox, Harrison Ford, Franco Nero, Barbara Bach. Shaw said "I find it a bit ridiculous at my age to be running around a mountain in Yugoslavia saying 'Let's go'."[13]
It was Ford's first movie after the release of Star Wars.[14] He says he picked the part because it was a "strong supporting character" that was "very different from Han Solo. I wanted to avoid being stereotyped as a science fiction type."[15] Ford later said he did the film "to take advantage of the chance to work. And it was a job I did for the money."[16]
Fox at the time was best known for The Day of the Jackal and playing Edward VIII on television.[17] Caroline Munro said she was offered the female lead but she turned it down because it involved too much nudity.[18]
MacLean was reportedly unhappy with the prominence given to the Barbara Bach character. "She's of minimal importance in my novel," he said.[19]
Filming
Filming went for five months starting in late 1977.[20] Shepperton Studios outside London were used for most indoor scenes and included a full-scale mock-up of a Lancaster bomber, while scenes were shot around the Đurđevića Tara Bridge, Montenegro, and Jablanica Dam on Jablaničko Lake in Jablanica, Bosnia and Herzegovina with the assistance of Jadran Film. Scale models of the dam, the valley and the bridge were constructed at the Mediterranean Film Studios in Malta.
President Tito of Yugoslavia authorised his government to assist the production, including providing 2,000 soldiers as extras as well as uniforms and equipment and several Yugoslavian army T-34 tanks. He visited the set.[21]
Some scenes were also shot in the Royal Naval Dockyard (South Yard) in Devonport, Plymouth. During a shot of the railway carriages the letters PSTO(N) can be seen, this stands for Principal Supply and Transport Officer (Navy), and on Jersey in the Channel Islands.[3]
George MacDonald Fraser was hired to do further work on the script during filming in Yugoslavia, in part because he and Guy Hamilton got along well when both worked on Superman (1978). However Fraser is not credited on the film.[1]
Edward Fox said five people worked on the script. "The action had been laid down but the characters were still stick figures. We had to dress them up and make the lines fit them as we went along."[22]
Ford said during filming, "I was lost because I didn't know what the story was about. I didn't have anything to act. There was no reason for my character being there. I had no part of the story that was important to tell. I had a hard time taking the stage with the bull that I was supposed to be doing."[16]
The bridge over the Tara River, which is the target of the commando operation in the film, was destroyed by partisans in 1942 with the original engineer that built the bridge (Lazar Jauković) involved in the operation to destroy it.[23]
Shaw said during filming that "I'm seriously thinking that this might be my last film. I no longer have anything real to say. I'm appalled at some of the lines. I'm not at ease in film. I can't remember the last film I enjoyed making."[24] Shaw's words proved prophetic as he died in August 1978 of a heart attack, before Navarone was released. It was his penultimate film, as he was filming Avalanche Express when he died.[25]
Filming went over budget to more than $10 million and the completion guarantor had to step in and provide additional funds.[11]
Musical score
Composer Ron Goodwin scored the film to the 126-minute version during the summer of 1978. Before the film was released it was shortened to 118 minutes. Additional music cues were created by recycling music from other parts of the film – typically reusing suspense passages in scenes for which they were not written. The CD release of the soundtrack by Film Score Monthly chronicles these changes, and presents the score as Goodwin wrote and recorded it for the 126-minute version.
Release
After being screened at Camp David as the Thanksgiving film for US President Jimmy Carter,[26] the film was released in the United States on 8 December 1978 to mixed reviews (according to production notes that accompanied the 2000 DVD release).
Before the film came out Maclean said in an interview that the only film he liked made from his writings was Guns of Navarone and "I am hopeful this return to Navarone will be good too, although the storyline bears little resemblance to what I wrote. Robert Shaw was a good actor, one of the most in demand in the world today. And I am told he did a good job. Whatever, this couldn't help be the best [of the recent adaptations of his work for the screen] because the rest were rubbish. But I am not bitter, you understand. The sale of my stories to the movies has been a matter of business – a process from which I usually detach myself."[27]
The 118-minute cut was released theatrically overseas by Columbia Pictures, which had released The Guns of Navarone.
