The Great Escape (1963)

When I was a young boy I thoroughly enjoyed watching John Sturges” wartime, prison- break movie, “The Great Escape”.  It had a tremendously hummable soundtrack, thrilling story and was full of heroic characters that spoke to my boyhood self.  

The movie told the supposed true story of a mass prison breakout of allied soldiers from a Nazi POW camp.   The prison camp is the type that is specially made to hold the most slippery of prisoners.  These are men who have made countless failed attempts at escape from other camps and as punishment were sent to this new, so called harder prison.  Why the Nazi’s would think it was a good idea to bring determined budding escapees together in one place is beyond me.

The movie is based on a true story and boldly claims at the beginning that the actual escape is depicted with extreme accuracy. 

The main inmates are POWs who should theoretically be hardened soldiers who have already experienced the nightmare of war.   In this movie however they do not behave that way at all and throughout the regular scenes of prison life and scenes of preparation for the escape, I felt that I was watching some sort of TV reality game show with the men just pretending to be prisoners.  There is absolutely no danger felt within these scenes.  A much more gritty and realistic prison war movie was David Lean’s, “The bridge on the River Kwai”, as in that film a prisoner was punished by being isolated in a searing hot cell.  When he came out he was almost dead.  In this movie, we have Steve McQueen’s character, Hilts, also being punished, numerous times, in isolation, except here he spends his time sitting in a more spacious cell and playing with a baseball. When he leaves isolation he looks exactly the same as when he went in.  No wonder he was never deterred from trying to escape.    

The film boasts an all star Hollywood and British cast who each take turns in playing cardboard characters who actually seem to be enjoying themselves while in prison.   It seems that nobody actually has to do any work in this camp, except grow a vegetable garden.  Who knew that the Nazi’s were so humane when it came to allied soldiers?  

The film producers thought it was not enough to give their heroes ordinary names and let the story explain their role in the escape.  Instead, Each one has a cool moniker. McQueen is “The cooler King”, James Garner is “The scrounger”, Charles Bronson is the “Tunnel King” and so on.  Even the British officer in charge of the escape, played by the great director Richard Attenborough is called, “Big X”, just in case it was not clear who was in charge. 

The Nazi guards in the movie are really stupid as well as they believe every cockeyed excuse told them   Even the Gestapo agents come across as pretty timid. 

Still when I was a young boy I loved this movie and it does make for a fun family film.  Something that Walt Disney would have been proud of, if Disney would have ever thought it appropriate to make a family movie about war.

This is the type of movie that makes dying a heroic act by itself.  Even the tragic and true elements of the story have been washed clean of any real pain. 

The actual escape during the 2nd half is done very well and includes elements of excitement, including a famous motorcycle jumping scene.      

While, “The Great Escape” is a fairly entertaining children’s film, It is not a movie about war, real prisons or real bravery, and its claim at being an accurate interpretation of an historic event was an insult to my intelligence.