...when the term blockbuster too often suggests digital special effects or a place to rent movies, The Great Escape serves to remind us of the true meaning of the word.
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"This is a true story. Although the characters are composites of real men, and time and place have been compressed, every detail of the escape is the way it really happened."
--Prologue, "The Great Escape"
I was reminded a few years ago just how good a movie "The Great Escape" was when a reader listed it on DVD Town's message board as one of his favorite action films. It certainly is an action film, although I hadn't really thought of it that way before, especially in light of more recent action thrillers where bullets fly and things blow up every minute and a half. With "The Great Escape" it obviously isn't the quantity of action involved but the quality.
Made in 1963, director John Sturges's war epic has already weathered the test of time, and I am sure that long after most of today's action/adventure flicks have been laid to rest, "The Great Escape" will be as popular as ever. Now that the folks at MGM have finally made it available in a true Special Edition DVD set on two discs, giving it the recognition it deserves, it should acquire even more fans.
Based on the book by Paul Brickhill, which dealt with a real breakout from a German prisoner-of-war camp in which the author himself was interned, "The Great Escape" chronicles the exploits of a group of Allied POWs during World War II who undertook one of the biggest prison breaks of all time. In 1943 the Nazis decided to put their worst escapees in one ostensibly escape-proof, maximum-security camp. These were prisoners who had most often tried to escape previously, and putting all of the rotten apples in one basket seemed like a good idea at the time. What the Nazis didn't figure on, though, was that in this one camp would be the best escape artists of the war and, thus, the toughest men to control. Control them the Germans could not.
No sooner do the characters in the movie arrive in camp than they're all trying to escape the same day! It's the sworn duty of these men to attempt to escape, "to harass, confound, and confuse the enemy." The big escape itself in the film was planned for 250 men, and it was not only to get as many persons to freedom as possible but also to serve as a diversionary tactic, an attempt to keep a large portion of the German army occupied hunting down escaped prisoners during the D-Day invasion.
Director Sturges was an old hand at action and adventure movies, having already done "Bad Day at Black Rock," "The Old Man and the Sea," "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral," "Never So Few," and, of course, "The Magnificent Seven." For "The Great Escape" he even got some of his "Magnificent" actors back together: Steve McQueen, James Coburn, and Charles Bronson. Then he added a roster of other big names, shot the whole thing on location in Germany in and about where the story really happened, and hired Elmer Bernstein to do the now-familiar theme music. Together with noted screenwriters and novelists W.R. Burnett ("Little Caesar," "The Asphalt Jungle") and James Clavell ("King Rat," "Shogun"), the film is a terrific collaborative effort.
The movie stars the ever-cool Steve McQueen as Captain Virgil Hilts, "The Cooler King," and the ever-charming James Garner as Lieutenant Robert Hendley, "The Scrounger," a pair of American officers in a prison filled largely with British and Australian prisoners of war. Hilts spends most of his time in the camp's solitary-confinement cell, the "cooler," for trying to escape on his own; Hendley spends most his time finding things the rest of the outfit needs to survive and escape. Both characters behave heroically but in realistic, low-key ways; even the famous, climactic motorcycle chase is restrained by today's over-the-top standards. The movie strives for realism and suspense and never resorts to melodrama or absurdity.
Interestingly, both McQueen and Garner came from a background of TV Westerns, McQueen from "Wanted: Dead or Alive" and Garner from "Maverick." I've read that McQueen became greatly annoyed with his friend Garner during shooting, thinking he was trying to steal the picture from him. McQueen's paranoia apparently became so annoying to everyone in the cast that Sturges threatened to fire him. This is ironic, considering that in "The Magnificent Seven" it was Yul Brenner who thought that McQueen was constantly trying to upstage him and steal the picture. In any case, "The Great Escape" solidified Garner's reputation and made McQueen a bona-fide superstar.
Also in the cast are Richard Attenborough (actor and Oscar-winning director) as Squadron Leader Roger Bartlett, "Big X"; Donald Pleasence as Flight Lieutenant Colin Blythe, "The Forger"; James Coburn as Flying Officer Louis Sedgewick, "Manufacturer"; James Donald as the Senior British Officer, Group Captain Rupert Ramsey, "The SBO"; Charles Bronson as Flight Lieutenant Danny Velinski, "Tunnel King"; David McCallum as Lieutenant Commander Eric Ashley-Pitt, "Dispersal"; Gordon Jackson as Flight Lieutenant Andy MacDonald, "Intelligence"; Angus Lennie as Flight Officer Archibald Ives, "The Mole"; Nigel Stock as Flight Lieutenant Denys Cavendish, "The Surveyor"; Robert Graf as Werner, "The Ferret"; and Hannes Messemer as Colonel von Luger, the camp commandant. The characters are amalgams of some of the people involved in the real escape.
Although this is an action film, there is a minimum of violence and no profanity, so, if you're interested in such things, it is suitable for family viewing. Furthermore, it has aged well; unlike many older films, it does not look in any way dated. Indeed, I would say it remains as fresh and inspiring today as when it was made. And let us not forget that Elmer Bernstein's remarkable music is still instantly recognizable. That popular march tune that plays throughout the picture is an inspiration in itself.
Minutiae notes: McQueen's passion for motorcycles led to the director's adding the famous chase scene toward the end of the movie, but McQueen did not do the most hazardous jump himself; stuntman Bud Ekins did that. In one scene, through the magic of editing, McQueen plays a German cyclist and is chasing himself! And the bike McQueen rides in the film, which is supposed to be a wartime BMW, is really a Triumph TTS Special 650 in disguise. In matters non-McQueen, Charles Bronson had been a coal miner in real life before becoming an actor, so his digging scenes were old hat. Stalag Luft III, near Zagan, Poland, was the actual prison that this film's camp was patterned after. Finally, "The Great Escape" was not only based on the Brickhill book but on the 1959 POW movie "Danger Within" (aka, "Breakout), which also co-starred Richard Attenborough. Ah, the movies.
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[release]11736[/release]