The Great Escape [DVD] [1963]

The Magnificent Seven director John Sturges reunited with film icon Steve McQueen in 1963 for this, the most famous and most thrilling escape movie ever made. The Great Escape co-stars such legendary actors as Charles Bronson, James Coburn, Richard Attenborough, James Garner, Gordon Jackson and Donald Pleasence and was based on the bestseller by Paul Brickhill, the same man who wrote Reach For The Sky and The Dam Busters.

It's based on the true story of hundreds of Allied prisoners covertly working together to pull off a daring escape from Stalag Luft North, Nazi Germany's most secure POW camp. The men dig tunnels, forge papers, fashioned maps and even uniforms in readiness for the big push only for the chosen few to face impossible odds and danger at every turn when finally out in the open.

Everyone remembers the image of 'The Cooler King' McQueen astride his motorcycle as he makes his last desperate dash for the barbed wire frontier. The movie has become a national institution thanks to frequent broadcasts during festive seasons and the famous theme tune has had the ultimate accolade of being belted out by fans at World Cup matches.

It's that connection to the beautiful game that makes this release all the better. MGM Home Entertainment are releasing two double DVD sets - the special edition will present The Great Escape in its original screen ratio, Dolby Digital 5.1 and will boast a commentary by the cast and crew. No less than three documentaries, titled 'An American Icon', 'History Versus Hollywood' and 'The True Story Of The Great Escape,' explore the film from all angles plus a trivia track tells you facts, figures and info during the course of the film. The original theatrical trailer rounds the set off.

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.