If you can’t go home again, you can watch it on cable.
I had such an experience recently when I saw “The Guns of Navarone” over the weekend. For those unfamiliar, “Guns” is a 1961 movie about an Allied mission to knock out two massive cannons that are blasting the British fleet out of the Aegean. It has an all-star cast: Gregory Peck, David Niven, and Anthony “I Was Zorba the Greek” Quinn.
I remember viewing it several times on the ABC Movie of the Week and the CBS Movie! and such, between the ages of 8 and 12. But I hadn’t seen it for about 30 years.
The verdict on watching “Guns”? It’s bad. Reaaaaaaaaaly bad. It’s not just the cheap-looking special effects, which might have represented the apotheosis of cinematic achievement 46 years ago, replete with bathtub renditions of sinking ships and model-ready fake artillery falling down a Styrofoam mountain into a fake sea. It’s not just the performances, straight outta the 19th Century School of Crappy Stage Acting. It’s not just the stupid love scenes (yes) or the dialog, which features gems like, “If we don’t get the explosives, then the Germans will find them first. That will mean that the mission has failed.”
No, these things I could abide. What put me over the edge was the blood.
As a bullet pierced flesh, it looked like someone had dropped a pot of red ink on the victim’s wound. Splotch, splotch.
Of course, the blood is indicative of something larger. When one of the heroes throws a grenade, every German soldier within a five-mile radius collapses. When somebody is shot — even with a single bullet — they fall to the floor dead, silent. No groaning, moaning, no screaming in agony, much less severed limbs and heads being blown apart. You know, the things that happen in combat.
Give this man a cuppa joe
“The Guns of Navarone” also reminded me of “Sands of Iwo Jima,” staring John Wayne. When one man is blodlessly shot in combat, he has the presence of mind to say a shema before dying. (Glad to know that someone in Hollywood thought of the Jews.)
Forrest Tucker, the dude from “F-Troop,” also starred in “Sands,” accounting for the most risible scene ever in the history of war movies. He leaves his foxhole to get ammo for two other soldiers, who are pinned by Japanese snipers. But instead of running back with ammunition, Tucker stops and gets coffee. Yes, he drops by the Iwo Jima Starbucks and gets a grande skim latte while his fellow G.I.s are getting their asses shot off.
“Man, that’s great coffee!” he says, getting a refill (he gets a seconds!). “Here, put some joe in the canteen so I can bring ‘em back to my buddies!” The buddies are dead, of course, because Forrest didn’t get the ammo back to them in time, because he was drinking coffee.
Dereliction of duty never tasted so good.
This is not to dismiss childhood pleasures, or that I should have expected “Guns” to be as gripping as I had envisioned. Things are never as good or bad as one remembers, of course, and I imagine reviewing all of my childhood television and movie consumption would be to simply open a treasure trove of embarrassment.
No, what ate at me the most is that nothing about the movie rang true. Nothing. The Germans are so incompetent, you wonder how they overran Greece in the first place. The blood is so fake that you thought you were watching a commercial for Ragu. The dialog, acting, plot, effects — not a single thing was honest. One can’t expect “Saving Private Ryan” in 1961, much less “Platoon” or “Bride of Chucky,” but I would hope that there’d been something mildly accurate in any movie of any generation.
Mr. Cooler King
Writers must hew to the truth to be worth a damn. I can’t really say that anything in “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” is true, but at least George Bush’s favorite book has some truth in it: the transformation of caterpillar to butterfly. In fact, there’s more truth in “Caterpillar” than George Bush has ever spoken.
If someone turned “The Guns of Navarone” into a novel, it would be…well, “The Guns of Navarone,” a 1957 novel by Alistair MacLean. Fiction writers don’t want to write what happened, but they want the truth. That’s the only thing that matters, be it a truth about human character, the narrator’s pet Shar-pei, or the price of gasoline.
I had something profound to say to end this, but I forgot what it was. Oh, yeah. If you really want to see a great war movie, try “The Great Escape.” Charles Bronson. James Gartner. James Coburn. Dudes digging tunnels. Evil Nazis. Best off all, Steve McQueen, the Cooler King, trying to jump a barbed-wire fence on a motorcyle. What more could you want? And here’s the kicker: “The Great Escape” actually happened.
Sigh. Don’t expect to see real facts in movies. I think that’s the moral of this story. Which is unfortunate, because I can’t tell you how many people I’ve come across who think that if it’s a movie that’s based on something, it MUST be TRUE.
Sigh. Don’t expect to see real facts in movies. I think that’s the moral of this story. Which is unfortunate, because I can’t tell you how many people I’ve come across who think that if it’s a movie that’s based on something, it MUST be TRUE.
Sigh. Don’t expect to see real facts in movies. I think that’s the moral of this story. Which is unfortunate, because I can’t tell you how many people I’ve come across who think that if it’s a movie that’s based on something, it MUST be TRUE.
It sounds as if this would not have been a good choice for our movie club and I shall refrain from recoommending it for February or March.
As horrible as this movie sounds, in the old days the modus operani was to “suggest” what was happening, happened or was going to happen.
No sex scenes, just implied. No real combat gore, just the suggestion of it. I guess the “realism” movement was born in the 70s and progressed from there.
I remember the rape scene in Dirty Harry and remembering how ther ewas NOTHING left to suggestion.
Gosh, now I have a real impulse to go rent The Guns just to see how bad it was. Of course, at this point, I’ll do just about anything to keep from working on my prospectus. As you can see, I’ve even picked up blogging again. Help me, BF–you’ve got to post something that will inspire me to get high behind The Scope of the Problem again!
It sounds as if this would not have been a good choice for our movie club and I shall refrain from recoommending it for February or March.
As horrible as this movie sounds, in the old days the modus operani was to “suggest” what was happening, happened or was going to happen.
No sex scenes, just implied. No real combat gore, just the suggestion of it. I guess the “realism” movement was born in the 70s and progressed from there.
I remember the rape scene in Dirty Harry and remembering how ther ewas NOTHING left to suggestion.
It sounds as if this would not have been a good choice for our movie club and I shall refrain from recoommending it for February or March.
As horrible as this movie sounds, in the old days the modus operani was to “suggest” what was happening, happened or was going to happen.
No sex scenes, just implied. No real combat gore, just the suggestion of it. I guess the “realism” movement was born in the 70s and progressed from there.
I remember the rape scene in Dirty Harry and remembering how ther ewas NOTHING left to suggestion.
Gosh, now I have a real impulse to go rent The Guns just to see how bad it was. Of course, at this point, I’ll do just about anything to keep from working on my prospectus. As you can see, I’ve even picked up blogging again. Help me, BF–you’ve got to post something that will inspire me to get high behind The Scope of the Problem again!
Gosh, now I have a real impulse to go rent The Guns just to see how bad it was. Of course, at this point, I’ll do just about anything to keep from working on my prospectus. As you can see, I’ve even picked up blogging again. Help me, BF–you’ve got to post something that will inspire me to get high behind The Scope of the Problem again!
Love, Love, Loved the movie The Great Escape. And if it doesn’t make me a cheesy loser, I have to confess that I loved Chicken Run for all the tributes it made to that movie, as well.
Cultural relativism — can we judge the past by today’s standards? (Holy crap. I’m so tired, I’m talking like an undergrad. Someone get me a beer and take the keyboard away…)
madame d.: you mean if it’s in a movie, it’s not necessarily true? don’t believe it. i mean, everything in “the passion of the christ” was true. and in all of those oliver stone flix.
phoenix: i guess the operative word here is “longevity”: some movies of that era hold up well, and some are classics, but not this one.
e.p.: you’re blogging again? huzzah!
i know of many things that will inspire you to get high behind the scope of the problem, but none of them are legal, except in amsterdam.
michele: “the great escape” is the bomb. and it answers your question — it’s about the same age as “the guns of navarone,” but it holds up over time.
Love, Love, Loved the movie The Great Escape. And if it doesn’t make me a cheesy loser, I have to confess that I loved Chicken Run for all the tributes it made to that movie, as well.
Cultural relativism — can we judge the past by today’s standards? (Holy crap. I’m so tired, I’m talking like an undergrad. Someone get me a beer and take the keyboard away…)
Love, Love, Loved the movie The Great Escape. And if it doesn’t make me a cheesy loser, I have to confess that I loved Chicken Run for all the tributes it made to that movie, as well.
Cultural relativism — can we judge the past by today’s standards? (Holy crap. I’m so tired, I’m talking like an undergrad. Someone get me a beer and take the keyboard away…)
madame d.: you mean if it’s in a movie, it’s not necessarily true? don’t believe it. i mean, everything in “the passion of the christ” was true. and in all of those oliver stone flix.
phoenix: i guess the operative word here is “longevity”: some movies of that era hold up well, and some are classics, but not this one.
e.p.: you’re blogging again? huzzah!
i know of many things that will inspire you to get high behind the scope of the problem, but none of them are legal, except in amsterdam.
michele: “the great escape” is the bomb. and it answers your question — it’s about the same age as “the guns of navarone,” but it holds up over time.
madame d.: you mean if it’s in a movie, it’s not necessarily true? don’t believe it. i mean, everything in “the passion of the christ” was true. and in all of those oliver stone flix.
phoenix: i guess the operative word here is “longevity”: some movies of that era hold up well, and some are classics, but not this one.
e.p.: you’re blogging again? huzzah!
i know of many things that will inspire you to get high behind the scope of the problem, but none of them are legal, except in amsterdam.
michele: “the great escape” is the bomb. and it answers your question — it’s about the same age as “the guns of navarone,” but it holds up over time.
Well now, I’m totally going to go watch that documentary about Mickey and Mallory Knox.
Well now, I’m totally going to go watch that documentary about Mickey and Mallory Knox.
Well now, I’m totally going to go watch that documentary about Mickey and Mallory Knox.
I hate to get all emotional on you, but this is probably one of my late father’s favorite movies. I must have seen it 60 times with him on TV. If I could have, I would have buried a DVD copy with him.
But you are right. It is a bad movie. Wasn’t there an even worse sequel?
I hate to get all emotional on you, but this is probably one of my late father’s favorite movies. I must have seen it 60 times with him on TV. If I could have, I would have buried a DVD copy with him.
But you are right. It is a bad movie. Wasn’t there an even worse sequel?
I hate to get all emotional on you, but this is probably one of my late father’s favorite movies. I must have seen it 60 times with him on TV. If I could have, I would have buried a DVD copy with him.
But you are right. It is a bad movie. Wasn’t there an even worse sequel?