Guns of Navarone

Plot hole: The huge guns are set high up on a cliff face facing out to sea and it is obvious that they cannot be depressed to fire at a downward angle - the massive gun carriages set on rails would prevent that happening. They cannot be elevated to fire at an upward angle, too, because they fit pretty snugly in the hole cut into the cliff face to accommodate them. This means that their maximum and minimum ranges would be quite close together, covering a strip of maybe a few hundred metres either side. Given that the sea is completely open on the side of the island they are protecting, why don't the ships targeted by the guns while passing the island simply sail inside or outside of the narrow stretch of sea the guns can hit?

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Suggested correction: The guns are firing across a strait. A strait is a "narrow passage." Since the targets must appear at a limited range, the guns only need a limited elevation angle.

Noman

Watch the film again. The guns are facing the open sea. There is no land visible anywhere behind the ships. If that's a strait, it's a very, very wide one.

The mission given says the guns are guarding a strait. The last shot of the six destroyers shows land behind them on the opposite side of the strait.

Noman

Other summaries explain that the strait is only deep enough for the ships at the place which matches the guns' range. So ships could not take advantage of further away or closer in.

Then what are the dark shapes rising out of the sea on the far side of the ships. If they are not islands, what are they?

Noman

Suggested correction: That the gun carriages are supposedly set on rails is not correct. In the novel template, as well as in the film, it is shown that the guns were installed on turntables. And as for their variable angles of fire - it could be due to (fictional) modifications.

Daniel4646

Plot hole: Maria describes in lurid detail how Anna was arrested by the Germans and tortured by being severely whipped, leaving her with gruesome scars all over her back. She also says that Anna hasn't spoken a word to anyone since she escaped from captivity. How, then, does Maria (or anyone else) know about the scars? Nobody saw them (they don't exist) and Anna obviously didn't tell anyone about them.

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Suggested correction: She is probably able to write.

This correction is too speculative and offers no in-film evidence or further proof.

Bishop73

Anna was a school teacher.

Wasn't she a school teacher? So probably could write.

If she "wrote" about the scars wouldn't someone want to see them, perhaps get her to a doctor? Making up silly, deux ex machina explanations for film mistakes does not invalidate them.

Your assuming a lot like when the Germans release here. She could have "recovered" and had a fit anytime anyone touched her.

As was noted above, making up silly, deux ex machina explanations for film mistakes does not invalidate them. You cannot 'recover' from scars. It is ridiculous to think that nobody ever thought to get Anna to a doctor for treatment.

Factual error: Miller rigs his booby trap by attaching the wires from the bomb to a pole down which a metal runner slides, so that when the runner touches the wires it completes the circuit and detonates the bomb. The trouble is, the pole is made of steel, and steel is very conductive indeed. Miller attaches the exposed end of the wire to the pole without any insulation or gap. The circuit will actually be completed when Miller attaches the battery, and he and his booby trap will be blown sky high.

More mistakes in Guns of Navarone

Trivia: At the very end of the film when Gregory Peck and David Niven are standing on the deck of the warship watching the explosions, you can see a very distinctive injury on Niven's upper lip. During the filming of the sequence where the commandos climb the cliffs he was slammed into the rock face by the water dumped on them to simulate the waves breaking over them. The resulting infection put him in hospital. He complains about the indifference of the film's producers in his book "The Moon's A Balloon."

PEDAUNT

Trivia: Anthony Quinn was so taken with Rhodes, the location for the movie, that he decided to buy some land there. Particularly a bay formerly known as Vagies Bay, which is still called Anthony Quinn Bay.

Trivia: Peter Grant, future manager of The Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin, had an uncredited bit part in this movie playing a British commando.

Scott215

Corporal Miller: Sir, I've inspected this boat, and I think you ought to know that I can't swim.

Major Franklin: Pappadimos, have you got your silencer?
Pvt. Spyros Pappadimos: Yes.
Major Franklin: Then use it. Shoot the laundry boy.
Maj. Baker: Are you crazy?
Major Franklin: And if the Major gets in your way, shoot him too. That's an order.

Squadron Leader Howard Barnsby raaf: First, you've got that bloody old fortress on top of that bloody cliff. Then you've got the bloody cliff overhang. You can't even see the bloody cave, let alone the bloody guns. And anyway, we haven't got a bloody bomb big enough to smash that bloody rock. And that's the bloody truth, sir.

More quotes from Guns of Navarone

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