When James Darren has his final showdown with the German officer, there is a brief shot of the officer walking towards Darren prior to either firing. In this scene the officer's uniform already shows the bullet wounds which he has yet to receive.
When Mallory and Miller are going down the rope after they place the explosives, it's shown in several shots that they both have removed their boots for the swim. But when Miller jumps, he (or rather David Niven's stunt double) has dark-colored shoes.
Toward the end of the film, when the big guns are firing at the British convoy, the two guns fire consecutively, not simultaneously. However, after the second firing, the camera cuts to the convoy, and two splashes are seen in the water together, one on each side of the ship.
There is a close-up of the bride dancing in a circle during the wedding that is re-used a second time.
Miller (David Niven) places a fake rat on the right cannon before jumping into the water.
However, when the German soldier discovers it he plucks it from the left cannon.
When the Germans are searching the gun positions for explosives, German soldiers are using mine detection equipment and 'sweeping' the tracks leading up to the guns. This is a useless activity since the detection equipment is a metal detector and would give off a signal due to the steel rails.
The team fires their Stens by holding the magazine. A soldier would never hold a side magazine SMG by the magazine when firing the weapon. This would cause a misfeed due to damage to the magazine feed lips caused by the shooting pulling back on the magazine.
When the Germans cut through the door into the gun tunnel, they only cut one of the two doors. By cutting out the wheel that pushed the locking rods up and down into the locking receptacles, the locking rods are freed up so that one side can be opened. The top rod would naturally fall down and unlock, but the bottom rod would have to be pulled up out of its receptacle and held there while the door was being opened. However nobody is reaching through the hole to hold up that rod when the doors are opened (in reality the steel that was cut with the torch would be too hot for a while to do this, and they were in a great hurry to reach the guns before they were sabotaged). Furthermore, only one door was 'freed' yet both doors were opened at the same time, right after the wheel on the one door was cut out with a torch.
Oberleutnant Muesel calls SS officer Sessler by the rank of
"Hauptmann". This is a German Army rank, equal to Captain, but was not used by the SS. The equivalent SS rank was "Hauptsturmführer," or "head storm leader". Further, Sessler's collar insignia appears to have only two stripes below the three pips, which is correct for an SS Obersturmführer, which was one rank lower. The insignia for an SS Hauptsturmführer had four white stripes below the three pips.
Climbers using options use them for protection from a fall, using a hole to attach a carabiner through which the type is fed. Here, the option is used solely as a hand- and foot-hold.
When Stavros (Michelle Barker) walks away from the others at the table during the first briefing, he trips over the carpet.
Unsurprisingly, people sometimes trip. This likely was intentional, otherwise director J. Lee Thompson would have refilmed the take.
Unsurprisingly, people sometimes trip. This likely was intentional, otherwise director J. Lee Thompson would have refilmed the take.
As the shot-up bomber is landing in the opening, a bomber can be seen hanging motionless on a string in the sky in the background as it passes on its approach.
A number of instances of "screeching tires" sound effects when vehicles are on gravel roads.
After the alarm is sounded for the missing sentry on top of the cliff; German troops pile into trucks to investigate. As the trucks pull away, the tailgate of the second truck has "Dodge" stamped into it.
The "German" patrol boat that intercepts the team's decrepit fishing boat is actually a British HDML (Harbour Defence Motor Launch).
After the boat sinks and the unit is stranded on the island, Mallory begins to climb the cliff face. As the camera pans to the top, the stars in the night sky above can be seen even though it is raining profusely.
(at around 58 mins) When the guard patrol is activated and they load into trucks, they are loaded into American Dodge Power Wagon trucks. The word "DODGE" is clearly visible on the tailgate.
The map featured at 7:10 into the film is a map showing the post war map with territorial boundaries of Germany and Poland that were not made and recognized until well after 1945.
The German general demands that scopolamine be used to interrogate the prisoner left behind by the group. However, while scopolamine was documented in 1881 it did not come into commercial or widespread use until 1947, two years after WWII ended. Additionally, it was not known to be a truth serum drug until the early 1950s.
In the opening sequence at the airfield, Mallory looks out toward smoke rising from a crashed plane. The film takes place in 1943, but on the right side of the shot a c.1960 pick-up truck is clearly visible.
Mallory and Miller enter the gun tunnel and close the doors from inside, locking the Germans out. The Germans were world renowned in technology and engineering. It is beyond belief that they would build a security door that could not be opened from the outside.
Aboard the motorboat, Maria makes a statement directly to Andrea, leaving him room to answer her. In the audio, he answers, "Yes." In the video, he nods, and his mouth stays shut, lips not moving.
When Anna regains consciousness at the ruins and sits up in fear, Maria grabs her and tells her, "They're friends - our friends." She then repeats the phrase "Our friends" in Greek, dubbed in on the soundtrack, while her lips clearly form the words "Our friends" in English.
At 02:23- the "Guns of Navarone" do not recoil when firing.
The island is stated at the beginning to be of no military use whatsoever, yet there are 2000 British troops stationed on it. Quite a number of wasted troops on an island that is of no use.
Miller hides some of the explosives while standing in pit under the ammunition lift. The pit contains dark liquid, up to his knees or waist. He hides the wires that will trigger the explosives by covering them with grease. Under those circumstances, when he left the pit, he should have left a visible trail of the liquid dripping from this clothes and footprints. The gun crew would have seen the trail, and discovered the explosives.
When Papadimos meets his end, the German officer is using a British Sten gun instead of a German MP40.
Inexplicably, Stavros doesn't use the rope for the climb, not does there seem to be one available.
Near the end, the Germans search the fortress for explosives, and one German is seen using a metal / mine detector over rail tracks.