Press Release SPHE Press Release: The Guns of Navarone (1961) (4k UHD) (1 Viewer)

[roxy1927]

An intermission is an interruption when a film is designed without one and the theater simply stops it about halfway through at an arbitrary reel change.
When designed well it gives a film heightened tension and anticipation and at the same time a brief rest for the audience to collect its thoughts for the next half.
Much like a theatrical experience.
When I was able to start going to theater on my own the musical No No Nanette was in 3 acts so you got 2 intermissions. But Follies which was epic in its demands on both the performers and audience had none!

 

[Douglas R]

Kwai also had an interval (Intermission)

I remember that intermission back in 1957!

 

[mark brown]

Life is so short and Guns such a magnificent film- you bet it’s a definite buy!

 

[Dave Moritz]

I will be adding this film to my library!

 

[Alan Tully]

I ran the Blu-ray this evening. The image goes from looking HD to good DVD to so-so DVD & the dupes look pretty ropey. A lot of the picture looks a bit squat, you can really see it in the heads, it looks like they need a bit of vertical stretch. I enjoyed the film, a bit too much talk & not enough action, but it gets through on star power.

spoiler alert

There's a couple of things: Mallory (Gregory Peck) has the job of climbing the sheer cliff & leaving a rope that the company can use to climb up with, which they do...except the leader Franklin (Anthony Quayle) who climbs up last, but not using the rope (the rope's been pulled up!), & he struggles & falls & breaks his leg. What's that all about. Oh, & when Mallory is climbing, he stops to hammer a piton in the rock, not in a crack, but in the actual rock (& good luck with that), & a few shots later he's at the same bit of rock hammering the same piton in. When the two of them enter the guns complex, there's not a single person in there, a Hollywood bit of luck too far for me. When Miller (David Niven) attaches the wires at the bottom of the lift & says when the lift comes down it will press on the wires & complete the circuit (& boom!), which is fine, but then he rubs oil over them which would surly complete the circuit. They push a car off the road, down a deep drop, & or course it explodes after falling about five feet (just like the scene in Where Eagles Dare)...& Richard Harris's Australian accent is laughable, thank god it's just a short cameo.

...oh, & a bit of trivia, Kenneth More was originally to play the David Niven part (& very good he would have been too), but his agent or the person who held his contract wouldn't release him (or something like that).

 

[roxy1927]

At Loew's Jersey it was the first time I was seeing the film and it was the worst reel change I ever saw. They're looking up the sheer cliff then there's a reel change and suddenly they're all at the top. I was literally smiting my forehead.

 

[Peter Apruzzese]

At Loew's Jersey it was the first time I was seeing the film and it was the worst reel change I ever saw. They're looking up the sheer cliff then there's a reel change and suddenly they're all at the top. I was literally smiting my forehead.

Either a bad print or an incompetent projectionist.

 

[lark144]

Guns was on a continuous performances basis in NY. River Kwai was a reserved seat roadshow at the RKO Palace. I don’t think that overture/intermission was very common with continuous performance first runs.

I saw "Guns of Navarone" at my neighborhood theater in Syracuse NY with an intermission. They promoted it as a one week only special event. And the ticket prices were jacked up, from 50 cents to an astronomical 75 cents. That intermission really helped make it special and added to the suspense. Plus you had a moment to go to what our friends on the other side of the pond call the loo, get more popcorn, and anticipate what was going to happen next. That might have been the film that hooked me on road shows. I tried to go to all of them. Not only did I like the intermissions, where you could stretch and wander about a bit, they usually sold programs in the lobby. Before home video, that was the only way--along with the soundtrack LP--that you could revisit the film. My favorite intermission--in terms of dramatic impact--was "2001". When that last shot appeared followed by the word "Intermission", everyone in the theater was buzzing and talking about it. We couldn't wait for the film to begin again. I actually met a number of people there in that intermission at the Capitol that became long-term friends.

 

[roxy1927]

My favorite intermission was also 2001. It was at the Rivoli. The moment you realized HAL was eaves dropping the great curtains started to slowly and portentiously close. The projectionist had it perfectly timed. It was shocking and very creepy. I was floored.

 

[usrunnr]

Most intermissions are thought-provoking designed into the productions.

They are not simple break-points.

My favorite pre-intermission scene is in "Lawrence of Arabia". In its quiet subtlety it takes my breath away.

Oh, that's right. I momentarily forgot: "2001: A Space Odyssey", my favorite film ever.

 

[KPmusmag]

My favorite intermission is The Sound of Music. As a kid I just cried my eyes out when Maria left. I thought the movie was over!

I saw Guns of Navarone at the Hollywood Cinerama Dome in the 1990s. Not sure if it was a "restoration", but the print seemed very clean. Certain parts were grainier than others IIRC, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

 

[bujaki]

As God is my witness,...I'll never be hungry again!

 

[lark144]

As God is my witness,...I'll never be hungry again!

That's when I left the first time I saw it. I figured it couldn't get any better than that. And as I've seen the rest a number of times since, I was right.

btw, I always thought the line, "I'll never go hungry again" was a subliminal cue for patrons to buy popcorn in the lobby during the break.

 

[bujaki]

That's when I left the first time I saw it. I figured it couldn't get any better than that. And as I've seen the rest a number of times since, I was right.

btw, I always thought the line, "I'll never go hungry again" was a subliminal cue for patrons to buy popcorn in the lobby during the break.

Agreed. The second part never lived up to the first part, not even with that "Damn" thrown in.

 

[John Maher_289910]

My favorite scene into Intermission, is "Before the Parade Passes By" in HELLO, DOLLY! Nothing else in the film, before it or after it, equals it.

 

[Tino]

Either a bad print or an incompetent projectionist.

Unfortunately likely both. I saw Jaws there a few years ago and it suffered many of the same issues.

 

[Tom St Jones]

Over on Bluray.com, some dumbbell commenter called TGON "The epitome of silly 60s action movies.."

 

[Alan Tully]

Over on Bluray.com, some dumbbell commenter called TGON "The epitome of silly 60s action movies.."

Ha, I don't have a problem with that.

 

[YANG]

Over on Bluray.com, some dumbbell commenter called TGON "The epitome of silly 60s action movies.."

Hmmm... Silly... there seems to be, but not as strong as the plot that the movie tries to deliver.
From distrusts, to doubt, to blaming, to gaining trusts, to peculiar encounters and coincidences, to falling for one of the member during the era of war, to "betrayal", to "uncover betrayal", to *silly suicidal confrontation*, to *die due to moral consideration and hesitation*, to eventually left only 2 individuals to do the sabotaging job while only one to draw enemy troops attention elsewhere, to job completion, and to *leave with love interests*... those marked in asterisks does seems little silly to contribute to the length of 150+mins of the film...

However, those are the factors that may happen in war time.

 

[YANG]

I ran the Blu-ray this evening. The image goes from looking HD to good DVD to so-so DVD & the dupes look pretty ropey. A lot of the picture looks a bit squat, you can really see it in the heads, it looks like they need a bit of vertical stretch. I enjoyed the film, a bit too much talk & not enough action, but it gets through on star power.

spoiler alert

There's a couple of things: Mallory (Gregory Peck) has the job of climbing the sheer cliff & leaving a rope that the company can use to climb up with, which they do...except the leader Franklin (Anthony Quayle) who climbs up last, but not using the rope (the rope's been pulled up!), & he struggles & falls & breaks his leg. What's that all about. Oh, & when Mallory is climbing, he stops to hammer a piton in the rock, not in a crack, but in the actual rock (& good luck with that), & a few shots later he's at the same bit of rock hammering the same piton in. When the two of them enter the guns complex, there's not a single person in there, a Hollywood bit of luck too far for me. When Miller (David Niven) attaches the wires at the bottom of the lift & says when the lift comes down it will press on the wires & complete the circuit (& boom!), which is fine, but then he rubs oil over them which would surly complete the circuit. They push a car off the road, down a deep drop, & or course it explodes after falling about five feet (just like the scene in Where Eagles Dare)...& Richard Harris's Australian accent is laughable, thank god it's just a short cameo.

...oh, & a bit of trivia, Kenneth More was originally to play the David Niven part (& very good he would have been too), but his agent or the person who held his contract wouldn't release him (or something like that).

Coincidentally, i just did a replay of the 3 WAR/Action Fictional Classics over the weekend...

What DVD Did You Watch Last?

Hey Mr. S, Super fun reply - great to read your feedback. As it is to read yours, sir...:thumbsup: Ladies again....many things they could have done better like tanks tops at the very least....you are very right. Deb's bikini was a start haha :) I think Vera in sexier clothes would have been...

www.hometheaterforum.com

...just wondering from FHDBD, what improvement does the 4k offers on picture quality?
Or will it be the same as DVD where it's just bit rate increment from initial release?
Or not much in BD, except up-scaling from 2k to 4k?