On 2010-03-03 M. Corey, Skagit Valley, Wa USA wrote: OK, first, ´The Great Escape´ did not inspire the lame 60´s TV show Hogan´s Heroes - The Complete First Season. That was inspired far more by Stalag 17 and George Segal´s King character from King Rat.
And while I´m usually very critical of films that overplay the US contribution in WWII(like the execreble U-571 (Collector´s Edition)) or the overrated The Longest Day (Two-Disc Collector´s Edition)(before you bitch about my dissing The Longest Day, I saw it the weekend it came out, and at 12 years old thought it fakey). However, in the case of The Great Escape, I´ll give Hollywood a pass, since if not for Hollywood, this story probably would not have made it to the silver screen. English cinema at the time was gearing up for Swinging 60´s films like Alfie, A Hard Day´s Night, and Billy Liar - Criterion Collection. There were so many great war films out of the UK in the late 40´s to mid 50´s, it was as if Ealing and Pinewood and the rest just wanted to forget WWII and get on with it! One thing that I´ve really come to treasure about The Great Escape is that the screenplay was written by James Clavell, ex-RAF pilot & POW at Singapore´s notorious Changi POW camp and the author of the semi-autobiographical King Rat.
While there were POWs from the US in Stalag Luft III, they didn´t play large roles as James Garner´s ´Canadian´ scrounger, or Steve McQueen´s Hilts ´The Cooler King´, although for an interesting insight into a Hilts-like character, read Sage by Jerry Sage.
Yes, Steve McQueen´s bike scenes were contrived, and he was riding a Triumph, and that lame bF-108 from The Longest Day reappeared here & US AT-6/Texan/Harvard trainers with German markings were used, but The Great Escape is still a thrilling movie, and I´d never known that Donald Pleasance(´The Forger´) was an ex-RAF Lancaster crewman who was a former POW in Germany.
The one problem I really had with the set was in the Extras: an English-made look at the real Great Escape showed ´German´ guards wearing RAF uniforms, and carrying British Mk III Enfield rifles and Sten guns. It´s not like there aren´t plenty of Mausers and Schmeissers out there that they could have used. Still, the looks at the memorial to the 50 were touching.. And summed up by saying Very impressive 2-disc edition, however..... Currently The Great Escape has an overall rating of 8 over 10.
The Great Escape can also be found in the following searches:
Daniel L. Fapp claimed In 1943, the Germans opened Stalag Luft North, a maximum-security prisoner-of-war camp, designed tohold even the craftiest escape artists. In doing so, however, the Nazis unwittingly assembled the finest escape team in military historybrilliantly portrayed here by Steve McQueen, James Garner, Charles Bronson and James Coburnwho worked on what became the largest prison breakout ever attempted. One of the most ingenious and suspenseful adventure films of all time, The Great Escape is a masterful collaboration between director John Sturges (The Magnificent Seven), screenwriters James Clavell (Shogun) and W.R. Burnett (Little Caesar), and composer Elmer Bernstein. Based on a true story, The Great Escape is epic entertainment that ´entertains,captivates, thrills and stirs´ (Variety).
Item that are similar to The Great Escape can be found at: