The Guns of Navarone

And I know most people under 40 years old probably go, who's that? Well, these are people who don't pay attention to the golden age of Hollywood, but he's the guy that was nominated for six Oscars and won twice.

And to work with a guy that did Zorba the Greek, Guns of Navarone, Lawrence of Arabia, and have dinner with him every Saturday night for a year, it was amazing for me.

We became very good friends.

And every time I went to New York to do Letterman or any of the talk shows, I'd go up to Rhode Island and spend time with him up there and just hang around.

I always like watching that when that pops up.

The Guns of Navarone.

You probably know the Guns of Navarone, don't you?

I've heard of it.

I know of it.

He'd made some really amazing films, not to mention two Planet of the Ape movies and, of course, the Cape Fear.

And The Guns of Navarone.

And The Guns of Navarone.

Guns of Navarone.

So, I mean, this man knew his craft.

Yeah

... filmmaker, editor, you know.

And he'd been in films, as we said before, those great British movies he did, The Guns of Navarone, all of that.

coming from paramount pictures

listeners it's taken me a long time to get this man back on the podcast he was back when we did guns of navarone and it's been that many years oh my god i was like in the first year of the show so but welcome back to b movie cast man nick brown how you doing today nick

Hey, Steve.

First off, thanks for having me on.

And he looked at all the movies we've done so far because there's an interesting history.

Nick...

The first time he came on the show to do Guns of Navarone, we'd only done like five or six episodes or something.

It was like, and we had recorded one just a couple prior to going out.

His exceptional British films included the suspenseful Tiger Bay.

Thompson relocated to Hollywood in 1960, and the following year he helmed two action suspense classics: Guns of Navarone, which earned him an Oscar nomination, and Cape Fear.

His Hollywood output included more action pictures, plus excursions into dark comedy, like What a Way to Go!, thrillers like Eye of the Devil, science fiction like Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, and musicals like Huckleberry Finn.

Thompson and Bronson first worked together in 1975 when they made St. Ives.

The Highlander was the sword master from 1992 to 1998.

He did stunt work for The Guns of Navarone, which is an awesome film.

It came back in 1961 with Gregory Peck, and there

was a bunch of guys in that one that was...

Yeah.

And, I mean, looking back at your grandfather of the films like Arabesque, The Guns of Navarone, that man knew a spy movie.

Yeah.

I want to hear from you.

let me offer you The Great Escape, Where Eagles Dare, Battle of Algiers, something different.

Heroes of Telemark, The Longest Day, The Guns of Navarone.

I mean, you've got the gamut there.

You've got, as it were, silly commando films, serious commando films.