CONSENSUS #20. The Great Escape (1963)

 

SYNOPSIS: Shame on you, if you need this section. TGE is the true story of a mass escape from a German POW camp in WWII. This is done via a tunnel. The movie covers the construction of the tunnel, the escape, and then follows several of the escapees when they are on the lam.

BACK-STORY: “The Great Escape” is a WWII prisoner of war movie. It was released in 1963 and was a huge hit and has grown in popularity over the years. It is the most famous movie in its subgenre. The film was directed by John Sturges and is based on the nonfiction book by Paul Brickhill. Brickhill was a prisoner in Stalag Luft III and helped with the escape although he was not one of the escapees. His book and the movie are dedicated to the fifty escapees who did not survive. The main screenwriter was James Clavell who spent time in a Japanese prison camp and later wrote the screenplay for “King Rat”. One of the tunnelers (Wally Floody) served as a technical advisor. Donald Pleasance was a prisoner in Stalag Luft 1 during the war. Steve McQueen insisted the motorcycle scenes be written in and did the stunts, not including the last jump (for insurance reasons).

TRIVIA:  home.bt.com, yesterday.uktv.co.uk, warhistoryonline.com

1.  Bartlett is based on Squadron Leader Roger Bushell who was Cambridge-educated with British parents,  but he was born and raised in South Africa.  He was a great skier and the scar that  Attenborough sported was based on a skiing accident he had.  He was shot down on his first combat mission.

2.  The tunnels were dug 30’ down to circumvent the German seismograph equipment.

3.  The 200 penguins disposed of 130 tons of sand in 25,000 trips. When winter came and the sand could not be blended with the snow and hard ground, they put it under the floor of the theater the Germans allowed them to build.

4.  Tom was discovered because they were rushing to complete it before the Americans were to be transferred to another camp.  No Americans escaped.

5.  Suspecting an escape attempt, the Germans at one point transferred 19 suspected ringleaders, but curiously not Bushell.  They only netted six key members of the escape committee.

6.  600 of the total 1,500 prisoners played some role in the escape.  When it was decided to get 200 out the priority was the first 30 would be prisoners who had language skills and other advantages, the next 70 were rewarded for their work, and the rest were chosen by lot.

7.  Of the 50 prisoners who were caught and executed, all but seven were RAF.  22 were British, 6 were Canadians, 6 were Poles, and 4 were Australians.

8.  21 Germans were executed after the war for the war crime of executing the prisoners.

9.  The wooden horse escape occurred one year earlier in the same camp.  All three men successfully escaped which equaled the number in the Great Escape.

10.  The prisoners convinced the Germans that “goons” was an acronym for “German Officer or Non-Com”.  The prisoners kept log books of goon movements.  The Germans knew about this and at one point a German officer asked to see a log book to check up on his men.

11.  The most valuable prop was milk tins provided by the Red Cross.  They were used for shovels and for the ventilation ducts.

12.  Charles Bronson had been a coal miner and had suffered from claustrophobia.  During the shoot, he fell in love with David McCallum’s wife Jill Ireland.  He joked that he was going to steal her.  When the McCallum’s divorced four years later, Bronson married Jill.

13.  Steve McQueen got caught by a speed trap set up near the set.  McQueen was upset with his amount of screen time and at one point walked out.  He was not happy that Hilts did not like the whole baseball and mitt thing.

14.  Donald Pleasence had been a POW in a German camp.  When he first gave director Sturges advice, Sturges told him to mind his own business until he found out his background.

15.  McQueen attempted the big jump but failed.  His friend Bud Elkins was brought in.  Elkins managed a motorcycle shop in L.A.  He later did most of the stunt work on CHIPS.  McQueen did the stunt where the German motorcyclist ran into the wire.  McQueen was among the Germans that chased Hilts in the final jump scene through the wonders of editing. 

16.  James Garner based his scrounger character on his experiences in the Korean War.  The barbed wire was rubber and entwined by the cast and crew during breaks.

17.  McCallum and James Leyton are the only survivors of the stars.  Leyton was a pop star and recorded the opening theme with lyrics.

18.  Goff’s (Jud Taylor) line during the drinking scene “No taxation without representation!” was ad-libbed and took McQueen by surprise.

19.  United Artists was worried about the lack of females.  They wanted to have a buxom beauty cradle Ashley-Pitt when he was shot at the railway station.  They suggested holding a Miss Prison Camp contest, but Sturges nixed the idea.

20.  McQueen was paid $87,500, but Garner made $150,000.

 

Belle and Blade  =  3.0

Brassey’s              =  5.0

Video Hound       =  5.0

War Movies         =  4.4

Military History  =  #44

Channel 4             =  #3

Film Site                =  yes

101 War Movies  =  yes

Rotten Tomatoes  =   #45

HISTORICAL ACCURACY: The movie opens with the claim that it is based on a true story, but with composite characters and time compression. It boldly proclaims that every detail of the escape is true. That statement is too strong, but the movie is commendably close to the facts.

There was a Stalag Luft III and the Germans did put all their “bad eggs in one basket”. The attempted escapes on the first day actually occurred in the way depicted. The “X organization” did plan an escape of 250 men involving the construction of three tunnels named Tom, Dick, and Harry. Weirdly, the movie changes the names around for no discernible reason. Harry was actually the one under the stove and Dick was in the washroom. (It was abandoned and used for dirt storage after the Germans cleared the area it was to pop out in.) Tom was discovered by ferrets, but not during a celebration of the 4th of July. There was a moonshine celebration on a different day.

All the activities surrounding the escape are accurate. The forging of papers, disposal of the dirt, making of clothing, creation of ventilation system, the singing of Christmas carols to hide the sounds of digging, the shoring up the tunnels with bunk bed boards, etc. The movie is extremely strong in depicting how the plan was put into effect.

The escape was essentially like the film shows. The tunnel was twenty feet short of the woods. There was an air raid that shut the lights down for a while. I could find no evidence that a rope was rigged up, but seventy-six men did escape before the exit was discovered by a sentry (probably not because someone fell). It is important to note that none of the seventy-six were Americans. The Americans had been moved to another camp before the escape. Gee, I wonder why the filmmakers decided to leave Steve McQueen and James Garner in the escape?

The third of the film dedicated to the main characters on the lam is substantially Hollywoodized. There was no theft of a plane or a motorcycle, for instance. The movie is close to the truth in its depiction of the success of Sedgwick (actually Dutchman Bram van der Stok) in reaching Spain (although the Resistance drive-by shooting is surely artistic license) and Willy and Danny (Per Bergsland and Jens Muller) stowing away on a ship to reach Sweden. The execution of fifty recaptured men is a fact, but they were not killed in a large group as shown in the movie.

Where the movie takes most of its liberties is in the characters, but it is up front in the composite nature of them. Some are close to a real person like Roger Bartlett representing Roger Bushell. Bushell was the leader of the X Committee and played an essential role in the escape. Ramsey was actually Herbert Massey and he did have a leg injury. Ives (the real Jimmy Kiddell) did die on the wire. Willy and Danny and Sedgwick were differently named and of different nationalities than their counterparts, but their escapes were true. The rest take some creative thinking to determine who they are supposed to be. The important thing is the roles they represent (scrounger, forger, manufacturer, etc.) were real and accurately depicted.

OPINION: I have to be up front about the fact that this was my favorite movie when I was growing up. This was back when I and my brothers got to see it once a year on network TV. That was always a great night in our house. I may have seen it more than any other movie (not counting movies I have shown in class for decades). Sometimes our childhood favorites do not hold up when we watch them through adult eyes. This is not the case with “The Great Escape”. It was and still is one of the classic war movies.

The movie is an expert blend of suspense, action, and humor. The humor works very well. It is dry and used sparingly, but effectively. Some of the lines are memorable. For instance, the ferrets bust in to the washroom and narrowly miss the trap door to Harry being sealed. Danny hustles into the shower and when the guard asks Sedgwick what he is doing there he responds “Watching him. I’m the life guard.”

The camp was constructed near Munich and accurately recreates a Stalag in layout, if not in atmosphere. The tunnel set allows for a cutaway view of the digging. The scenes are truly claustrophobic and the ever-present danger of cave-ins adds to the suspense. The scenes outside the camp are authentic-looking since the movie was filmed in Europe.

The movie does a great job in its structure. The buildup to the escape concentrates on character development and is tutorial on the work that went on. This could have been tedious, but the injection of humor and Steve McQueen keep the narrative flowing. The movie, to its credit does not have a prolonged denouement after the escape. The alternating getaways are deftly juggled and suspenseful. Hilts motorcycle capers dominate, but they are edited such that we have to come back to him at least four times before the famous climactic jump sequence.

The movie ends on a sober note with the murders and the question – was it worth it? However, if ever there were a war movie that is not anti-war, this is it. Life in the camp is portrayed like it would be if you went to a POW fantasy camp. It seems like fun, which it assuredly was not. This is the biggest factor in keeping the movie from being an A+.

Finally, the acting is stellar. Whoever did the casting gets a gold star. The mix of dependable British thespians with cocky Americans is stimulating. This is an actors’ movie. In particular, watch Steve McQueen steal every scene with little eye-catching movements including shameful mugging. His co-stars either had sharing natures or were infuriated. Whatever, McQueen became a superstar based on his performance.

In conclusion, it is appropriate that it made the top 20.  I would have it higher, but that’s my opinion.  It is a much better movie than the next on the list, for instance.  It has everything that makes a war movie great. It is entertaining. It tells a story that deserves to be told. It teaches. It is accurate enough. It is realistic. Sometimes 14-year old boys are right. This is a truly great movie!