The Great Escape [DVD] [1963]

Yet, under the direction of "Big X" Bartlett (Richard Attenborough in what, for me, was his most memorable role), seething with rage at ill-treatment from the Gestapo who threatened "You will be shot" if he escaped again and was caught, these "rotten eggs" managed to conjure up one of the most daring prisoner-of-war breakouts in military history, whose story was recounted by Paul Brickhill, the author also responsible for the book which had inspired the film, "The Dam Busters" (1955).

Attenborough is joined by a cast of well-known British stars like Gordon Jackson (of ITV's "Upstairs Downstairs" fame), Angus Lennie (who memorably blows a raspberry at the kommandant for his comment that British and German people "understand" each other), David McCallum (playing the only naval officer in the movie), and Donald Pleasance (who was no mean "twit" with his understanding of birds - yes, it is a pun!), plus, of course, big-name American stars James Garner, Charles Bronson and Steve McQueen.

Garner plays Handley "The Scrounger", a volunteer with the American-crewed RAF "Eagle" fighter squadrons, Bronson plays Danny, "The Tunnel King", a Polish volunteer with the RAF, while McQueen plays Hilts, a U.S. Army Air Forces man who, for reasons never explained, is put in this camp along with the "Big X" people. This was quite clearly an attempt to sell this movie to the American public, yet it was an inspired choice, given that its popularity has endured over the past four decades.

Thankfully, the man who would go on to play "Bullitt" was not solely responsible for making the movie one of the greatest WWII movies ever made. In their respective scenes before, during and after the tension-filled escape from the camp, Bronson, whose character's claustrophobia nearly stops the escape before it even starts, Garner and Pleasance have their chances to shine, though James Coburn, who plays Sedgwick, an Australian, does not have a memorable time, since he gets all the way to Spain in a leisurely way without meeting any trouble from the Germans - unlike McQueen, who - how shall I put it succinctly - tries to escape on a motorbike. (The rest is, as they say, cinematic history.)

The camaraderie amongst the men and their success in getting 76 men out before the penny (pfennig) finally dropped are very hard to ignore, as they use their ingenuity in distracting the Germans while carrying on the mammoth task of digging three long escape tunnels.

Yet it was not as if the POWs had everything their own way - who can forget the scene of Ives (Lennie) hanging off the barbed wire fence after being shot by a German watchtower guard as he made a futile escape attempt during the prisoners' impromptu July 4th bash to celebrate U.S. Independence Day, or the scene at the railway station where Ashley-Pitt (McCallum) sacrifices his life to prevent a Gestapo officer publicly identifying Bartlett (Attenborough) and McDonald (Jackson).

"The Great Escape" has endured in popularity for many reasons. Most of all, it tells a story based on a true story. It is a story of courage where one side had weapons whereas the other had none at all. The viewer is caught up in the tension as the POWs, in disguise, use public transport and wonder if the passengers around them, including S.S. officers, are aware of who they really are. Such tension is usual in espionage movies, yet this movie succeeds in producing even more tension than those other ones, and no spying is involved. These are people who broke out of the camp for freedom and for the chance of getting back home to continue the fight for Europe's freedom.

As the film ends, the viewer learns that it is "dedicated to the fifty" real POWs who were brutally murdered by the Gestapo after their escape from Stalag Luft III. I like to think that, even without the Hollywood hype (such as it was in the 1960s), this movie did do their story justice. Kudos to all the actors for fine, memorable performances.