The Great Escape

Rating:
Summary: The Greatest Prison Break Movie of All Time
Review: "The Great Escape" is one of my favorite war films. Forget about the historical concerns. As I've mentioned before in other reviews, if you're trying to get your history from Hollywood, I encourage you to go out to your local library and do some research. One should not watch this movie with a paper and pencil and write down the facts of what happened at this particular POW camp. Sit down and watch this movie and enjoy the wonderful story of these men who tunneled for years in order to realize a dream.

Steve McQueen is in the cast, one of my personal favorites, but I believe he gets far too much praise for this film. The movie is truly carried by the other actors; in fact, McQueen spends most of his time off-screen in solitary confinement. While the plot is moving and full of interesting turns, this movie survives on the character development that arises amongst this wonderful cast. The names on this film are incredible. The only detraction to this film is that you've probably seen one of the many films that has copied and borrowed extensively from it-so you might think it a bit cliché.

I agree, this DVD is a bit lazy and I wasn't impressed with the picture or the sound. The documentary is very interesting, however. Get this DVD because it will outlast VHS. But let's hope that they come out with a DVD that does a better job to recapture the quality of the original.

Rating:
Summary: GREAT MOVIE: MORE HISTORICALLY ACCURATE THAN SOME REALIZE...
Review: This is a great movie and DVD (there's only so much that one can expect from variable bitrates on a DVD-size disc with a movie over three hours long), and the movie is much more historically accurate than it is often given credit for. So many who say otherwise are ill-informed and obviously don't know much about the actual history of that actual escape. The depiction of what happened to the recaptured prisoners in the movie of THE GREAT ESCAPE is reasonably accurate as detailed on the historyinfilm site...specifically on the "Reprisal" page; along with being detailed in the various published accounts.

Hitler ultimately calmed down after being reasoned with by Goering, Feldmarschall Keitel, Maj-Gen Graevenitz and Maj-Gen Westhoff, and dictated that more than half the prisoners be shot and cremated. So, as depicted in the film, several of those recaptured were not executed and were indeed returned to confinement. In fact, even those executed were not "shot on the spot" for the most part, but were actually executed later after being turned over to the Gestapo; most being shot while being allowed to relieve themselves, under the guise of "trying to escape".

Furthermore, there are many accounts as to how much more humane the environment was within the camp (which even had a popular and very successful theatre, featuring prisoners who would later be name performers) than many other POW camps...and certainly nothing like the harsh conditions associated with the Concentration or Extermination camps.

To quote one source:

"It must be made clear that the German Luftwaffe [the German Air Force], who were responsible for Air Force prisoners of war, maintained a degree of professional respect for fellow flyers, and the general attitude of the camp security officers and guards should not be confused with the SS or Gestapo. The Luftwaffe treated the POWs well, despite an erratic and inconsistent supply of food.

Prisoners were handled quite fairly within the Geneva Convention, and the Kommandant, Oberst (Colonel) Friedrich-Wilhelm von Lindeiner-Wildau, was a professional and honourable soldier who won the respect of the senior prisoners."

Finally, virtually all the major engineering aspects in regards to the tunnels and the initial escape in the film are as they were actually acheived in the real escape.

It would behoove some to learn a little more actual history or do a little simple research before shooting from the hip with supposed "knowledge" of reality. THE GREAT ESCAPE certainly takes liberties in tone and character portrayal, but not in the key elements that are disparaged out of sneering ignorance.

BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI is also a great film, but took even greater liberties with the technical details of the events described than THE GREAT ESCAPE did....and offering up VON RYAN'S EXPRESS as a more realistic alternative is simply delusional and ridiculous.

Rating:
Summary: Why are MGM DVD's so bad?
Review: The movie itself would get 5 stars, but I subtract 2 stars for yet another lazy, no-effort DVD publication on the part of MGM. While widescreen, it is recorded on the DVD in letterbox, rather than anamorphic, format. What makes this especially bad is the usual, 2.70:1 aspect ratio of this movie. By recording in letterbox, that means half of the scan lines on the DVD are used to record nothing but black, empty space. The result looks terrible on a widescreen TV; the low resolution is very apparent.

While other studios seem to make an effort to re-master and produce high quality DVD's, for the most part MGM just seems to be recycling their Laserdisc masters with no additional effort put into the DVD itself. 'a real shame, considering their catalog has alot of great classics, such as this one.

Rating:
Summary: Great Movie. Bad History.
Review: As entertainment, this movie really works. Action, humor, big cast, great musical score. But as history, it stinks. You must read the book on which it was based (by Paul Brickhill) and a later book whose name regrettably escapes me -- something like "The Long Tunnel", maybe? -- to find out what really happened.
"Every detail of the escape is the way it really happened" reads the legend following the opening credits. Well, sort of. Brave and brilliant men dug a tunnel, forged documents, converted uniforms to civilian clothes, made compasses and maps, etc. Seventy-six of them escaped. Three made it home. The rest were recaptured. 50 were gunned down in cold blood by the Nazis. All that happened.
But the list of things in the movie that didn't happen in real life is rather long. Basically, almost all the "human drama" moments and action sequences are fictional. Colin didn't go blind. Hendley (James Garner) didn't nobly forfeit his chances of escape by offering to let Colin go with him. They didn't jump from a moving train, commandeer a plane, and almost get away before the plane ran out of gas. Hilts (Steve McQueen) didn't crack jokes at the commandant, play catch in the cooler, try to save Ives from being machine-gunned, nobly escape and let himself be recaptured so he could bring back info on the train schedules, inexplicably become the guy who got to dig the final foot of the tunnel (after taking no part in actually digging the tunnel), come up with the idea of the rope signal, nab a motorcycle, engage in a merry chase across the German countryside, and almost jump the cycle over the fence into Switzerland (Whew. I have to stop and take a breath after that one. A shorter summary would have been: McQueen's character was totally fictional, and these scenes were fabricated to give an egotistical actor the screen time he craved and demanded). Ashley-Pitt didn't kill a Gestapo guy and then get shot himself to nobly save Bartlett. Bartlett and Mac were not fooled into exposing their identities by a Nazi's linguistic trick.
Again, I basically liked the movie. It stands alone as good entertainment. And the basic message of the true story comes through: Men in difficult or tragic circumstances can choose to submit -- or they can strive to prevail. Both the book and the movie give inspiring evidence that there were plenty of men back in the 1940's who were strong enough to choose the latter course. Are there such men and women today?

Rating:
Summary: Ia vas liubliu...
Review: I recently got into the classic movie kick. I picked this movie up thinking it was something else & boy was I pleasantly surprised. This movie had it all. Can you believe the cast? Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson, James Coburn, etc... UNREAL. You've got jailbreaks, you've got car chases, you've got motorcycle stunts, you've got comedy, you've got counterfeiting. You've got it all. Although I was born 12 years after the movie was made, I thoroughly enjoyed it. The video/sound quality were excellent as well. I've recommended this movie to everyone I've come in contact with. "Have you seen the great escape?" This is definitely a must have for your DVD collection.

Rating:
Summary: All the rotten eggs in one basket
Review: There's a growing generation that knows "The Great Escape" more from pop-culture references like "The Simpsons" than it does from the movie itself. With the recent passing of Charles Bronson, too many of the original cast are now gone. "Escape" is 40 years old, but has still done a remarkable job of standing up to time and avoiding the inevitable slide into cliche. Many aspects of the film would be done differently today -- made in 1963, there's not a single female cast member, and every scene takes place from the POV of one of our protagonists. Doubtless a 2003 edition of the movie (presumably with Owen Wilson as Steve McQueen, and original castmember David McCallum returning in a power cameo) would expand the scope of the movie, show us a few wives back home in England and the States, and include a few dramatic capture scenes showing how our heroes got to Stalag Luft III in the first place.

What still works so well in "Great Escape" is the storytelling and cast. "Escape" begins as light comedy, with Elmer Bernstein?s enormously pleasant score, and with characters taking flying leaps into trucks full of trees. The first hour of the movie is rather genial. Doomed camp commandant Von Luger's plea to the POWs that they "sit out the war" together, is so heartfelt that for a few seconds you're almost tempted to root for them to take up his offer (at least, until the Gestapo show up). However, once the Germans discover the first escape tunnel, and the first POW is killed, the situation becomes much more grim. Once the escape is under way, director John Sturges masterfully switches gears, juggling six or seven stories all at once, marching nearly all of them to the same inexorable climax, as false hope mounts upon false hope. By the time Richard Attenborough informs us that he's "never been happier", you realize that there's just no way out.

For my part, I can't decide who gives the best performance in the movie. Today my money's on Charles Bronson, as the stoic yet claustrophobic Polish "Tunnel King". However, for the contemporary audience, Attenborough is a real discovery. Now better known as the director of "Gandhi", or perhaps from his Santa Claus-like turn in the first two "Jurassic Park" epics, it's quite a treat to see him as the younger, debonair and determined Roger Bartlett, mastermind of the escape. And of course Steve McQueen launched a hundred imitators (and the famed "Simpsons" homage) with his baseball glove and iconic motorcycle chase along the German/Swiss border.

The DVD could give us a little more, and one would assume that someday a special edition will be in the works. Don't take for granted, though, the crisp transfer of the movie, long known only to TV audiences from its commercial-filled, pan-and-scan transfer shown monthly on TBS. The short "documentary", narrated by Miguel Ferrer, is nearly a decade old, but adds a surprising amount of historical background on the actual Escape itself, along with interviews with McCallum, James Garner, several friends and relatives of McQueen, and some audio clips from the late director Sturges himself. The documentary thankfully does not limit itself to describing dates of filming, and doesn't once show us a photograph of a movie call sheet. It's worth a look. Also check out the 8-page booklet, a good source of trivia about the actual escape.

Rating:
Summary: "...and not to yield"
Review: For whatever reasons, this immensely popular film did not receive the critical praise it deserved when it was first released in 1963. Before seeing it again recently, I obtained an abundance of information from the Rob Davis Web site about the historical circumstances on which Paul Brickhill's novel (1950) and then this film are based. Specifically, when 76 Allied airmen on March 24 and 25, 1944, completed a "great escape" from Stalag Luft III, located in Sagan about 100 miles southeast of Berlin. (Brickhill was among the prisoners there.) It is incomprehensible to me what was required to accomplish the escape during months of preparation. The prisoners had to dig several tunnels while concealing any evidence of them (especially the soil removed); they had to create authentic-looking uniforms and military decorations (e.g. medals); they had to forge documents; and, meanwhile, they had to endure all of the mental, physical, and emotional hardships of incarceration during the final months of World War Two. Under John Sturges' direction, the film is historically faithful while taking certain liberties to tell its compelling story about ingenuity, determination, courage, and ultimate tragedy for most of those later captured.

The casting is superb and all of the performances are outstanding. Of special interest to me is the focus on certain core principles which are directly relevant to the business world. For example, getting a diversity of talent in proper alignment with work to be done and then carefully coordinating, indeed integrating everyone's efforts. Also, the power of effective teamwork which often requires personal sacrifice to achieve an organization's primary objectives. Finally, sustaining mutual support and encouragement while overcoming together what may seem to be insurmountable obstacles. From its initial release, The Great Escape has been correctly praised for its value as entertainment. Only in recent years, however, has it also been praised for its respectful portrayal of grace under duress in combination with individual ingenuity and group determination. After seeing it again recently, I was reminded of the Colonel Nicholson character (played by Alec Guinness) in The Bridge on the River Kwai and wondered what he would have done, had he been the senior Allied officer at Stalag Luft III in 1944. No one will never know, of course, but we do know what others there did. This film celebrates their uncommon valor.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding Score
Review: I've seen a lot of movies in my time, and this one jells like few others. One of the main reasons, as the other reviewers have noted, is the background score. It's underrated. I'd say it is one of the top three original scores done for any movie (the others being, say, Max Steiner's score to Gone With the Wind, and Fumio Hayasaka's score to The Seven Samurai). The Main Title is famous, but there is a lot of other music in there as well, and it's variable in tone and mood, perfectly complementing the story.

Rating:
Summary: good but kind of long
Review: this movie was very good but i was stupid and didn't read how long it was figuring it was only 2 hours long therefore i made myself late for class and got yelled at but thats my fault this is a good movie and its based on true events it did lead to other dumb moments on my friends and mine part especially when my friend tried to ride a broken back down a snow sloped hill while emulating steve mcqueen's motorcycle scene don't try to do any of that motorcycle stuff my friend sprained his arm

Rating:
Summary: McQueens wild ride
Review: brilliant companion piece to be viewed with his Magnificent Seven.Many of the actors in both movies became superstars, McQueen, Bronson, and Coburn. A film by John Sturges is a real treat