The Great Escape (film)

In 1942, having expended enormous resources on recapturing escaped Allied POWs, the German armed forces move the most determined to a new, high-security prisoner-of-war camp supervised by Luftwaffe Colonel von Luger.

Prisoners try to escape almost immediately; USAAF Captain Virgil Hilts and Scottish RAF Flying Officer Archibald "Archie" Ives are both imprisoned in isolation in the "cooler" (solitary confinement block[8]).

The prisoners' escape committee mount an audacious plan to tunnel out of the camp and break out 250 men, not only to escape, but so that as many troops and resources as possible will be wasted on finding POWs. Led by RAF Squadron Leader Roger Bartlett, "Big X", and senior British officer Group Captain Ramsey, the men organise into teams. American Flight Lieutenant Robert Hendley is "the scrounger" and blackmailer, who finds anything from a camera to identity cards. Australian Flying Officer Louis Sedgwick, "the manufacturer", makes tools like picks and bellows for pumping air into the tunnels. Flight Lieutenants Danny Velinski and William "Willie" Dickes are "the tunnel kings" in charge of digging. Flight Lieutenant Andrew MacDonald, Bartlett's second-in-command, gathers and provides intelligence. Lieutenant Commander Eric Ashley-Pitt of the Royal Navy, devises a method of dispersing soil from the tunnels under the guards' noses. Flight Lieutenant Griffith is "the tailor", creating civilian outfits from scavenged cloth. Forgery is handled by Flight Lieutenant Colin Blythe. The prisoners work on three tunnels simultaneously, calling them "Tom", "Dick", and "Harry". The work noise is covered by the prisoner choir led by Flt. Lt. Dennis Cavendish, the surveyor.

Hilts and Ives escape again, in vain. When Hilts is released from the cooler, Bartlett asks him to escape, scout the area immediately surrounding the camp and allow himself to be recaptured; Hilts refuses. Meanwhile, Hendley forms a friendship with German guard Werner, exploiting it to obtain travel documents and other needed items. Soon, Bartlett orders "Dick" and "Harry" sealed off: "Tom" is closest to completion. The prisoners are enjoying a 4th of July celebration arranged by the Americans when the guards discover "Tom". Despondent, Ives frantically climbs the barbed wire fence and is shot dead.

The prisoners switch their efforts to "Harry", and Hilts agrees to provide reconnaissance from outside the camp. The information he brings back is used to create maps to guide the escapees. Blythe discovers that he is going blind due to progressive myopia;[9] Hendley takes it upon himself to be Blythe's guide in the escape. The last part of the tunnel is completed on the scheduled night, but it proves to be twenty feet short of the woods due to faulty surveying. Knowing there are no other options, Bartlett orders the escape to go ahead. The claustrophobic Danny nearly refuses to go, but is helped along by Willie. Seventy-six prisoners get away, aided by an air-raid blackout. The escape is discovered when Griffith impatiently exits the tunnel in view of a guard.

All 76 POWs flee through various parts of the Third Reich. Danny and Willie steal a rowboat and proceed downstream to a major port, where they board a Swedish merchant ship. Sedgwick steals a bicycle, then rides hidden on a train to France, where the French Resistance get him to Spain and safety. Cavendish hitches a ride in a truck but is delivered to the authorities, discovering many other fellow prisoners recaptured. Hendley and Blythe steal a plane to fly over the Swiss border, but the engine fails, and they crash-land. Blythe is shot by German soldiers. As he dies, he thanks Hendley for getting him out. Hendley is recaptured. Hilts steals a motorcycle at a checkpoint, jumping a series of barbed-wire fences at the German-Swiss border to escape from German soldiers; he lands in the wire of the second fence and is recaptured. While waiting to pass through a Gestapo checkpoint at a railway station, Bartlett is recognized by Kuhn, a Gestapo agent; Ashley-Pitt sacrifices himself by killing Kuhn, then he is shot and killed. Bartlett and MacDonald slip away, but MacDonald blunders by replying in English to a suspicious Gestapo officer. MacDonald is quickly apprehended, and Bartlett is recognized and recaptured by Untersturmführer Steinach, an SS agent.

In mid-transport, prisoners in one truck, including Bartlett, MacDonald and Cavendish, are invited to stretch their legs in a field, whereupon they are all shot dead on the pretense that they were trying to escape. Hilts, Hendley and the others are returned to the camp. In all, 50 men were killed by the Gestapo, 23 survived being caught and only 3 successfully escaped, Stalag Luft III murders. Von Luger is relieved of command; Hilts goes to the cooler where he optimistically plans another escape, as he has done before.

Model of the set used to film The Great Escape. It depicts a smaller version of a single compound in Stalag Luft III. The model is now at the museum near where the prison camp was located.

In 1963, the Mirisch brothers worked with United Artists to adapt the book to produce the film adaptation. The story was adapted by James Clavell, W. R. Burnett, and Walter Newman from Paul Brickhill's book The Great Escape. Brickhill had been a prisoner at Stalag Luft III during World War II. In the book, Brickhill noted he had been a very minor member of the X Organisation, one of the "stooges" who monitored German movements in the POW compound.

1951 television adaptation

The book was previously adapted as a live TV production, screened by NBC as an episode of The Philco Television Playhouse on January 27, 1951.[10] The live broadcast was praised for engineering an ingenious set design for the live broadcast, including creating the illusion of tunnels.[11]

Steve McQueen (left) with Wally Floody, a former Canadian POW who was part of the real Great Escape and acted as a technical advisor in production of the film

Steve McQueen's Virgil Hilts, "The Cooler King", was based on at least three pilots, David M. Jones, John Dortch Lewis,[12] and William Ash.[13][14][15] McQueen has been credited with the most significant performance. Critic Leonard Maltin wrote that "the large, international cast is superb, but the standout is McQueen; it's easy to see why this cemented his status as a superstar."[16] This film established his box-office clout.

Richard Attenborough's Sqn Ldr Roger Bartlett RAF, "Big X", was based on Roger Bushell, the South African-born British POW who was the mastermind of the real Great Escape.[17] This was the film that first brought Attenborough to common notice in the United States. During the Second World War, Attenborough served in the Royal Air Force. He volunteered to fly with the Film Unit and after further training (where he sustained permanent ear damage) he qualified as a sergeant. He flew on several missions over Europe, filming from the rear gunner's position to record the outcome of Bomber Command sorties. (Richard Harris was originally announced for the role.)[18]

Group Captain Ramsey RAF, "the SBO", was based on Group Captain Herbert Massey, a WWI veteran who had volunteered in WWII. He is played by James Donald. Massey walked with a limp, and in the movie Ramsey walks with a cane. Massey had suffered severe wounds to the same leg in both wars. There would be no escape for him, but as Senior British Officer he had to know what was going on. Group Captain Massey was a veteran escaper himself and had been in trouble with the Gestapo. His experience allowed him to offer sound advice to the X-Organisation.[19] Another officer who likely inspired the character of Ramsey was Wing Commander Harry Day.

Flt Lt Colin Blythe RAF, "The Forger", was based on Tim Walenn and played by Donald Pleasence.[20] Pleasence himself had served in the Royal Air Force during World War II. He was shot down and spent a year in German prisoner-of-war camp Stalag Luft I.

Charles Bronson had been a gunner in the USAAF and had been wounded, but he had not been shot down. Like his character, Danny Valinski, he suffered from claustrophobia because of his childhood work in a mine.

James Garner had been a soldier in the Korean War and was twice wounded. He was a scrounger during that time, as is his character Flt Lt Hendley.[21]

Hannes Messemer's Commandant, "Colonel von Luger", was based on Oberst Friedrich Wilhelm von Lindeiner-Wildau.[22] He had been a POW in Russia during World War II and had escaped by walking hundreds of miles to the German border.[23] He was wounded by Russian fire, but was not captured by the Russians. He surrendered to British forces and then spent two years in a POW facility in London known as the London Cage.

Angus Lennie's Flying Officer Archibald Ives, "The Mole", was based on Jimmy Kiddel, who was shot dead while trying to scale the fence.[24]

The film is accurate in showing that only three escapees made home runs, although the people who made them differed from those in the film. The escape of Danny and Willie in the film is based on two Norwegians who escaped by boat to Sweden, Per Bergsland and Jens Müller. The successful escape of James Coburn's Australian character, Sedgwick (the manufacturer), via Spain was based on Dutchman Bram van der Stok. Coburn, an American, was cast in the role of Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Flying Officer Louis Sedgwick who was an amalgamation of Flt Lt Albert Hake, an Australian serving in the RAF, the camp's compass maker, and Johnny Travis, the real manufacturer.

Tilman 'Til Kiwe' Kiver played the German guard "Frick", who discovers the escape. Kiwe had been a German paratrooper officer who was captured and held prisoner at a POW camp in Colorado. He made several escape attempts, dyeing his uniform and carrying forged papers. He was captured in the St. Louis train station during one escape attempt. He won the Knight's Cross before his capture and was the cast member who had actually performed many of the exploits shown in the film.

The film was made at the Bavaria Film Studio in the Munich suburb of Geiselgasteig in rural Bavaria, where sets for the barrack interiors and tunnels were constructed. The camp was built in a clearing of the Perlacher Forst (Perlacher Forest) near the studio.[25][26] The German town near the real camp was Sagan (now Żagań, Poland); it was renamed Neustadt in the film.[26] Many scenes were filmed in and around the town of Füssen in Bavaria, including its railway station. The nearby district of Pfronten,[27] with its distinctive St. Nikolaus Church and scenic background, also appears often in the film.[26] Many scenes involving the railway were filmed near Deisenhofen station and on the Großhesselohe – Holzkirchen line.[28] The castle Hendley and Blythe fly by while attempting to escape is Neuschwanstein Castle.[29]

The motorcycle used by Ekins for stunts in the film.

The motorcycle chase scenes with the barbed wire fences were shot on meadows outside Füssen, and the "barbed wire" that Hilts crashes into before being recaptured was simulated by strips of rubber tied around barbless wire, constructed by the cast and crew in their spare time.[30] Insurance concerns prevented McQueen from performing the film's notable motorcycle leap, which was done by his friend and fellow cycle enthusiast Bud Ekins, who resembled McQueen from a distance.[31] When Johnny Carson later tried to congratulate McQueen for the jump during a broadcast of The Tonight Show, McQueen said, "It wasn't me. That was Bud Ekins." Other parts of the chase were done by McQueen, playing both Hilts and the soldiers chasing him, because of his skill on a motorcycle.[32] The motorcycle was a Triumph TR6 Trophy which was painted to look like a German machine. The restored machine is currently on display at Triumph's factory at Hinckley, England.[33]

End of the real "Harry" tunnel (on the other side of the road) showing how it does not reach the cover of the trees

The film was largely fictional, with changes made to increase its drama and appeal to an American audience, and to serve as vehicle for its box-office stars. Many details of the actual escape attempt were changed for the film, including the roles of American personnel in both the planning and the escape. While the characters are fictitious, they are based on real men, in most cases being composites of several people. The screenwriters significantly increased the involvement of American POWs; the real escape was by largely British and other Allied personnel, with the exception of Johnnie Dodge, who was naturalized British but retained US citizenship. (He married an American.) He served in the Royal Navy, British Army and (by manipulating records) the RAF. A few other American officers in the camp initially helped dig the tunnels and worked on the early plans. However, they were moved away seven months before the escape, which ended their involvement.[34][35]

The film omits the crucial role that Canadians played in building the tunnels and in the escape itself. Of the 1,800 or so POWs, 600 were involved in preparations: 150 of those were Canadian. Wally Floody, an RCAF pilot and mining engineer who was the real-life "tunnel king", was engaged as a technical advisor for the film.[36]

The film shows the tunnel codenamed Tom with its entrance under a stove and Harry's in a drain sump in a washroom. In reality, Dick's entrance was the drain sump, Harry's was under the stove, and Tom's was in a darkened corner next to a stove chimney.[37]

Ex-POWs asked film-makers to exclude details about the help they received from their home countries, such as maps, papers, and tools hidden in gift packages, lest it jeopardise future POW escapes. The film-makers complied.[38]

The film fails to mention that many Germans willingly helped in the escape itself. The film suggests that the forgers were able to make near-exact replicas of just about any pass that was used in Nazi Germany. In reality, the forgers received a great deal of assistance from Germans who lived many hundreds of miles away on the other side of the country. Several German guards, who were openly anti-Nazi, also willingly gave the prisoners items and assistance of any kind to aid their escape.[39]

The need for such accuracy produced much eyestrain, but unlike in the film, there were no cases of blindness. Some, such as Frank Knight, gave up forging because of the strain, but he certainly did not suffer the same ocular fate as the character of Colin Blythe in the film.[39] In fact, no one in the film says that Colin Blythe's blindness is the result of eyestrain. He identifies his problem as “Progressive myopia” suggesting that he has not only heard of the condition but has also been diagnosed.

The film depicts the escape taking place in exceptionally fine weather, whereas at the time it was freezing, and snow lay thick on the ground.[39]

In reality there were no escapes by aircraft or motorcycle: McQueen requested the motorcycle sequence, which shows off his skills as a keen motorcyclist. He did the stunt riding himself (except for the final jump, done by Bud Ekins).[40] The movie shows the murders of the fifty prisoners as a single massacre; in reality, they were shot individually or in pairs.

In addition, the film says the three prisoners who escaped to freedom were British, Polish, and Australian; in reality, they were Norwegian (Jens Müller and Per Bergsland) and Dutch (Bram van der Stok).[41]

In 2009, seven POWs returned to Stalag Luft III for the 65th anniversary of the escape[42] and watched the film. According to the veterans, many details of the first half depicting life in the camp were authentic, e.g. the death of Ives, who tries to scale the fence, and the actual digging of the tunnels.

The film has kept the memory of the 50 executed airmen alive for decades and has made their story known worldwide, if in a distorted form.[43]

On 24 March 2014, the 70th anniversary of the escape, the RAF staged a commemoration of the escape attempt, with 50 serving personnel carrying a photograph of one of the men shot.[53]

On 24 March 2019, the RAF held another event for the 75th anniversary of the escape. There was a screening of the film at London's Eventim Hammersmith Apollo, hosted by Dan Snow. The film was simulcast over cinemas throughout the UK.[54]

• The films Chicken Run, Reservoir Dogs, the 1998 remake of The Parent Trap, Top Secret!, Charlie's Angels, and Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult all contain references or homages to the film.[55]
• Monty Python's Flying Circus, The Simpsons, Hogan's Heroes, Nash Bridges, Seinfeld, Get Smart, Fugget About It, Archer, Goodness Gracious Me, Shaun the Sheep, and Red Dwarf have all parodied or paid homage to the film.[55]
• In "Escape From Stalag Luft 112B", an episode of Ripping Yarns, Maj. Errol Phipps (played by Michael Palin) is depicted as being the only prisoner of war never to escape from the camp.[55]
• In the British television comedy series Mitchell & Webb, a sketch called "Cheesoid" features a scene where a character who has lost their sense of smell locates a clove of garlic deliberately placed beforehand on the floor, in the same way that Blythe places the pin on the floor in the film.[56] Another sketch involving a German-language version of the gameshow Numberwang sees an English contestant tricked into revealing her nationality in the same way that MacDonald is tricked by the Gestapo agent.[57]
• The 1986 video game The Great Escape for the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum and DOS platforms, shares a title and similar plot to the movie. The game follows an unnamed prisoner of war who has been interned in a P.O.W. camp somewhere in northern Germany in 1942.
• In the first of two Ford commercials in which Steve McQueen's likeness from the film Bullitt was used, McQueen parks his car in a studio apartment garage beside the Mustang from Bullitt and the motorcycle from The Great Escape.[58]
• The 2003 video game The Great Escape for Xbox and PlayStation 2, is based on the film. The plot-line follows that of the film of the same name, except there are also levels featuring some of the characters' first captures and early escape attempts, as well as a changed ending.
• The 2004 video game Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, which takes place a year after the movie was released, references the movie in a Codec transmission early in the game. Major Zero, who at the time was using the code name Major Tom, discloses in a conversation to Naked Snake that he chose the name based on what he thought was the tunnel the prisoners used to escape. He later learned that he chose the wrong one; the tunnel was Harry, not Tom.
• Bernstein's Great Escape theme tune has been taken up by the Pukka Pies England Band, a small brass band who have played in the crowd at England football team matches since 1996.[59] They released an arrangement of the theme as a single for the 1998 FIFA World Cup and a newer version for UEFA Euro 2000.[60]
• Quentin Tarantino's 2019 film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood features Leonardo DiCaprio, as lead character Rick Dalton, in a scene where Dalton almost lands the role of Steve McQueen's character, Hilts.

A fictional, made-for-television sequel, The Great Escape II: The Untold Story, was released in 1988, with different actors, directed by Jud Taylor (in the 1963 original, Taylor played 2nd Lt. Goff).[61] The film is not a true sequel, as it dramatizes the escape itself just as the original film does, although mostly using the real names of the individuals involved (whereas the original film fictionalized them and used composite characters). It depicts the search for the culprits responsible for the murder of the 50 Allied officers. Pleasence appeared in a supporting role as a member of the SS.[55]

• List of American films of 1963
• Stalag Luft III murders

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• The Great Escape on IMDb
• The Great Escape at the TCM Movie Database
• The Great Escape at AllMovie
• The Great Escape at the American Film Institute Catalog
• The Great Escape at Box Office Mojo
• James Garner Interview on the Charlie Rose Show (See 30:23–34:47 of video.)
• New publication with private photos of the shooting & documents of 2nd unit cameraman Walter Riml
• Photos of the filming
• The Great Escape locations
• The Great Escape at Rotten Tomatoes