Out of a perhaps endless variety of World War II films, The Guns of Navarone presents a number of interesting moral conundrums on top of a crucial and daunting – or more to the point, physically impossible – mission. Based on an Alistair MacLean novel, the plot follows the exploits of six men and two women, as they work their way across Nazi-occupied Greece to the titular guns, which they are under orders to “spike.” (The term comes from the eighteenth century, when captured or abandoned cannons would be disabled (if they could not be moved) by driving a spike through the hole where the fuse was to go. However, in the twentieth century, this is only a euphemism for general destruction, and the man who organized the mission didn’t send an explosive expert along just to make weak jokes and antagonize Gregory Peck.)

If you didn’t know this was a work of fiction, what would tip you off are the peculiar qualifications that Gregory Peck’s character Captain Mallory has which made him the only possible man for the mission, that he’s a skilled mountain climber (one of the best in the world!), who had been working out the war in Greece as a ship’s captain, and who speaks both Greek and German like a native. He also has a partner, Andrea Stavros, played by the incomparable Anthony Quinn, a hard and brooding man who had lost his family to the Nazis, looking for any chance to pay them back. They are commanded by Major Franklin, whose superior officer, when sending him off on this desperate mission, had the jinxing effect of calling him lucky, and when the major is gravely wounded, Mallory takes command, to the distaste of some of the men, but especially that of Corporal Miller, played by my perpetual favorite actor, David Niven.

There are a number of sources of tension facing our heros: there are spies among friends, the pursuing Germans, the capriciousness of the weather which force them to land in the wrong spot, a breathtaking assent up sheer rock cliff, the shifting plans of armies which require them to move their schedule up a day, and more simply, the stress of working in a group where everything relies on trust that everyone can carry out their part, when no one can or will trust that their team members will come through; they were chosen for their lack of scruples and their efficiency at particular tasks, for they needed to be a small band to not attract too much attention, but lethal enough to have a chance at making the journey. There is the private who has discovered his own bloodlust at the expense of his common sense, and the one who has grown sick of blood and can no longer be counted on to defend even himself. The men with a debt between them that ends in a vendetta. The two friends of the major who argue over what is best for him and/or the mission when his wound is holding up their traveling across the country. And there is action, too, there are fights and torture and escapes and tanks rolling through Greek towns.

But mostly, the movie is about character, and the choices people make based on their belief in personal responsibility, and how that is a thing easily avoided in times of war, when you have orders or personal survival to fall back on. And the film builds to the resolution of the main conflict, which is not about the Germans at all or their guns, set as they are to destroy any passing ships, but rather the relationship between Captain Mallory, who took over the leadership of the band when the major was incapacitated, and Corporal Miller, the munitions expert. And because it is driven by character conflict, it isn’t the fastest thrill ride around, and perhaps to the modern eye it drags a bit (admittedly, it is about two and a half hours long), but, man, sit back and watch Anthony Quinn steal the show, and then tell me it wasn’t worth it.