Movies - The Great Escape

Home > Listing Index > Movies > The Great Escape

	Movies - The Great Escape

The Great Escape, written by James Clavell and W.R. Burnett and directed by John Sturges, is a famous and acclaimed 1963 World War II film, based on a true story about Allied POWs with a record for escaping from POW camps. The Nazis and Gestapo placed them in a new more secure German camp, from which they promptly form a plan to break out as many as 250 men.

Featuring an all-star, Anglo-American cast — including Steve McQueen (whose motorcycle chase is the film's most remembered action scene), Richard Attenborough, James Coburn, James Garner, Charles Bronson, and Donald Pleasence — The Great Escape is regarded as a classic and frequently repeated on television. It consistently ranks in the top 100 of the IMDb's . The march tune that serves as the film's main theme, written by Elmer Bernstein, has also become an easily recognizable classic.

Hollywood vs. history

The story was inspired by an actual escape from prison camp Stalag Luft III in 1944. While the film condenses various aspects of time and place, a disclaimer claims it to be true to the original as much as possible. This includes all the real-life details of the plans, escape tunnels, successes and tragic outcome of the "great escape". Paul Brickhill, an inmate of the original camp, wrote an account of the escape under the same name, upon which the film was based. Few Americans were involved in the actual escape, and, accordingly, only three Americans are in the entire prison camp in the movie (though there were several American actors portraying other nationalities). In the actual camp, the Americans present were serving in either the British or Canadian military, primarily the RAF or RCAF. One of the movie camp's three Americans is an RAF officer, who is challenged by a German guard, Werner, at the opening of the film, "Why do you fight for England, your enemy?" The guard mentions the White House burning of 1812, which the American character subsequently dismisses as "Pure propaganda!" In the actual camp, the POW's were primarily British, Canadian, and Australian, and the film does its best to reflect this. Refer to the prison camp link for more historical details.

Film plot

After years of exhausting manpower and resources on the homefront in the recapture of escaped Allied POW's, the Germans decide to put all the chronic escapers into one maximum-security prison camp. The new Allied arrivals examine the prison camp to find it lined with barbed wire and armed guard towers. Moreover, all of their huts raised above the ground, making any tunneling easily detectable. RAF Group Captain Rupert Ramsey (James Donald), the Senior British Officer, meets with camp commandant Colonel von Luger (Hannes Messemer). Von Luger expresses his frustration to Ramsey over the chronic escape attempts of his men. Ramsey reminds him that it is the sworn duty of every officer to attempt to escape from enemy camps. Von Luger understands, and that is why the Germans have built this new camp: "We have put all the rotten eggs in one basket, and we intend to watch this basket carefully." Von Luger tells him that life will be pleasant in the Luftwaffe camp, that there will be sports, recreation, and tools for gardening, and he suggests that Ramsey and his men sit out the remainder of the war in relative comfort.

Meanwhile, several men unsuccessfully attempt "blitz out" escapes on the first day of camp. Flight Lt. Danny Velinski (Bronson), a Pole serving in the RAF, and Flying Officer Louis Sedgwick (Coburn), an Australian, attempt to hide themselves among the Russian laborers leaving the confines of the camp. Flying Officer Archibald Ives (Angus Lennie) and Flight Lt. William Dickes (John Leyton) dive into the tree-laden beds of German trucks driving out of the camp. All the would-be escapees are easily caught. Captain Virgil Hilts (McQueen), a cool-mannered American loner, discovers a blind spot in the barbed wire between the two guard towers. He is shot at from the towers as he moves away from the spot and engages in an insolent exchange with Col. von Luger in front of all the men in the camp. As von Luger tells Hilts that he has had the pleasure of knowing many British officers who were are all so much more civilized than ill-mannered Americans such as Hilts, Ives blows a raspberry. Both Ives and Hilts are thrown into the camp's cooler (isolation chamber) for twenty days. In the cooler, Hilts stays silent, throwing his baseball against the wall repetitively. After much cajoling from the talkative Ives, Hilts finally reveals that he studied chemical engineering in the States, but picked up some money on the side by riding motorcycles. As Ives tells Hilts of his days as a jockey in Scotland and as a tunnel man in prison camps, Hilts quietly thinks about his next escape.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for The Great Escape ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article The Great Escape; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Movies - The Great Escape

Hollywood vs. history

Film plot

Searches on eBay

Related searches on eBay