The Great Escape, written by James Clavell, W.R. Burnett, and Walter Newman (uncredited),
and directed by John Sturges is a popular 1963
World War II film, based on a true story about
Allied prisoners of war with a record
for escaping from German prisoner-of-war camps.
The Luftwaffe placed them in a new more secure camp, Stalag
Luft III, from which they promptly formed a plan to break out 250 men.
The film was based upon the factual book of the same name by Paul Brickhill, who
observed the actual events as a prisoner, as did George Harsh who supplied the introduction.
Harsh, one of the few Americans in the British section of Stalag Luft III, died in 1980 at age 72, according to a 1980 page of
obituaries in Time magazine.
Featuring an all-star cast including Steve McQueen (whose motorcycle chase is the
film's most remembered action scene; he also did many of his own stunts), James Garner,
Richard Attenborough, James Coburn,
Charles Bronson and Donald Pleasence — The
Great Escape is regarded as a classic and frequently repeated on television.
The march tune that serves as the film's theme, written by Elmer Bernstein, has also become a classic.
Synopsis
Upset by the men and resources being wasted recapturing escaping Allied
prisoners of war, the Nazi German High
Command moves the most determined and successful of these captives to a brand-new, high-security prison camp, which the commandant, Colonel von Luger (Hannes Messemer), proclaims escapeproof.
The most dangerous of all, Squadron Leader Roger Bartlett (Richard Attenborough), known as "Big X", is dropped off by the Gestapo, who warn him that if he ever escapes again he will be shot. Finding himself locked up with "every
escape artist in Germany", Bartlett immediately begins planning the largest escape ever
attempted — construction of a tunnel system capable of sneaking out 250 men.
The first escape attempt, concocted during their time in the cooler together, is carried out by Hilts and Archibald Ives
(Angus Lennie). However, they are caught and put straight back into the cooler. Later, when
the three Americans in camp (Hendley, Hilts & Goff) are celebrating American Independence Day with the rest of the camp, a depressed Ives runs to climb the
fence to escape, in full view of guards. Hilts notices and runs to stop him, but he is too late as Ives is gunned down by one of
the guards.
Teams of men are organized to survey, dig, hide dirt, manufacture civilian clothing, forge documents, provide security and
distractions, and procure contraband materials. The distraction was mainly from people singing. Flight Lieutenant Hendley (James Garner), "the scrounger", finds
ingeniously devious ways to get whatever the others need, from a camera to identity cards. Flying Officer Louis Sedgwick (James Coburn), "the manufacturer",
makes many of the tools they need, such as picks for digging and bellows for pumping breathable air into the tunnels. Flight
Lieutenant Danny Velinski (Charles Bronson), "the tunnel king", is in charge of digging,
while forgery is handled by Flight Lieutenant Colin Blythe (Donald Pleasence).
Meanwhile, Captain Virgil "Cooler King" Hilts (Steve
McQueen) manages to irritate the German guards with a combination of his frequent escapes and his smart-aleck behavior.
Bartlett persuades Hilts to reconnoiter during one of his escapes and then let himself be recaptured, so that they will have
knowledge of the surrounding countryside, and can create maps to guide the escapees out of German-held territory.
The prisoners work on three escape tunnels ("Tom", "Dick" and "Harry") simultaneously. After the first tunnel is discovered,
they put all their efforts into completing the third. The last part of the tunnel is completed on the night of the escape, but is
found to be twenty feet short of the woods that would provide cover. Nevertheless, seventy-six men escape before one is finally
spotted coming out of the tunnel.
After various attempts to reach neutral Switzerland, Sweden, and Spain, almost all of the escapees are recaptured or killed. Hendley
and Colin attempt to fly to Switzerland, but their plane runs out of fuel and crashes. Soldiers arrive at the site, and Colin is
shot while Hendley surrenders. Flight Lieutenant Cavendish (Nigel Stock), attempting to
sneak by in the back of a truck, is captured. Hilts embarks on his famous motorcycle chase, but is captured after crashing into
the only barbed wire fence standing between him and freedom. Bartlett, along with Mac, are stopped at a train station, but manage
to escape after their fellow POW and friend Eric Ashley-Pitt (David McCallum) sacrifices
himself by shooting the Gestapo leader, he is then killed by a Nazi officer. Bartlett and Mac are soon captured in the streets of
a nearby German town.
Only three evade capture and make it to safety. Danny and Flight Lieutenant Willy Dickes (the tunnel kings) successfully board
a ship in a German harbor after safely rowing down a river. Sedgewick evades the capture by soldiers in France after a local
resistance group stages a drive-by shooting of an outdoor coffee-shop. After realizing he is with the Allies, the local bartender
enlists the help of a guide to get Sedgewick into Spain.
As for everyone else, instead of being returned to camp, fifty of the captured prisoners, including Bartlett, Mac, and
Cavendish, are taken to an open field and shot. Hendley and 21 others are brought back to the camp. Senior British Officer Group
Captain Ramsey (James Donald) learns of the massacre from
von Luger, who has been relieved of command.
Hilts returns to the camp, and subsequently to the "cooler". His fellow American officer Goff throws him his baseball and
glove as he walks into confinement. The movie ends with Hilts being locked away, and as the soldier walks away, he hears the
baseball being tossed against the wall repeatedly.
The real events
Steve McQueen on the set with the film's technical advisor, ex-POW
Wally Floody, who was one of the tunnelers involved in the real Great Escape.
Although many elements of the film are based on fact, real-life men and events are condensed in the film. Thus
James Garner's character of Hendley represents several blackmailers and suppliers.
Similarly the forger, played by Donald Pleasance in
the movie, is actually a composite of at least two men, Tim Walenn and James Hill. One of the main escape organizers, Lithuanian
flight captain Romualdas Marcinkus, is not mentioned in the movie at all.
Elements of the film compared to the actual events include:
- Three tunnels were dug, shored up and lit much as portrayed in the film. One of them was discovered by the Germans just as it
was on the verge of completion. Sand from the tunnels was put in bags which were hidden in the prisoners' trousers. The prisoners
would wander around the camp and pins sealing the bags would be released, spreading the dirt over the compound. The men doing
this job were known as "penguins".
- POWs who came up with plans to escape needed permission to proceed from the Escape Committee. This was in order to avoid
conflicting escape plans from cancelling each other out: an escaping prisoner being caught by the guards could cause the alarm to
be raised and ruin another escape attempt. (Thus Hilts and Ives need Bartlett's go-ahead before proceeding with their attempt to
dig under the wire.)
- According to Paul Brickhill, who didn't actually go through the tunnel, there was a miscalculation and the tunnel ended short
of the trees. According to Alan Burgess, in his account of the escape in The Longest Tunnel (1990, Grove Press), the
tunnel actually did reach the forest. However the trees were so sparse that they didn't provide sufficient cover. The
escape had to proceed or the forged papers would no longer be valid. The prisoners really did fabricate the aforementioned papers
as well as their 'escape suits'.
- Only 76 of the projected 250 men escaped the camp and an air raid did take place during the break-out. And, as shown in the
film, only three POWs managed to get out of Germany and into neutral territory: in real life
they were Norwegians Per Bergsland and Jens Müller who escaped to Sweden and Dutchman Bram van der Stok who finally reached Spain.
- 50 of those recaptured were murdered by the Gestapo, a serious violation of the
Geneva Convention. Investigations made after the war led to the arrest, conviction
and, in many cases, execution of those involved.
- Roger Bartlett, Richard Attenborough's character, was based on Roger Bushell, the real-life mastermind of the escape, who was regarded as a brilliant organiser and
leader of men. The scar underneath the character's eye is in tribute to Bushell, who was a competitive skier and suffered an
accident on the slopes that left him with a permanent scar.
- Group Captain Nicolas Tindal was in charge of forging documents for the
escapees.
- Danny Velinski, Charles Bronson's character, is generally considered to have been
based principally on Wally Floody, Canadian mining engineer and pilot, who also acted as a
technical advisor for the film. He was transferred before the actual escape. The character is also considered to represent F/Lt
Ernst Valenta, F/O Danny Krol, and F/O Wlodzimierz Adam Kolanowski who were involved in the design and maintenance of the tunnels. They participated
in the escape but were captured and shot.[1]
- One important factor which was kept out of the film was the help the escapers got from outside the camp as far back as their
home countries. POWs received much material from home which proved invaluable for this and many other escapes. Acting through
secret agencies such as MI9, families from Allied
nations would send maps, papers, tools and disguise material hidden in gifts like books, food and harmless-looking objects: a
small map of Germany could be concealed inside a pen for example. Ex-POWs asked the filmmakers not to include this kind of detail
as they were concerned it could jeopardise the chances of future prisoners escaping [2].
The fictional events in the film
Elements of the film based not on fact included:
- The film depicts Tom's entrance as being under a stove and Harry's as being in a drain sump in a washroom. In
actuality, Dick's entrance was the drain sump, Harry's was under the stove, and Tom's was in a darkened
corner.
- No members of the American armed forces actually escaped. While many had worked on the
construction of both Tom and Harry, by the time of the escape through Harry the American prisoners had all been
moved to a separate compound. However, John Dodge, an American in the British Army, was one of the escapees. A BBC [1] article states the following:
"The role of the American characters in the film is much exaggerated - indeed, they had all been moved to another compound by
the time of the escape and absolutely no Americans were involved in the actual breakout. The image of the dynamic Americans
helping out the rather more pedestrian British is perhaps a reflection of American perceptions of their role during the Second
World War, though a more charitable interpretation is that commercial necessity dictated a more prominent role for Americans.
Whatever the reason, the extensive use of creative licence to boost the role of America and Americans in films 'based' upon true
stories or events is nothing new."
- Hilts's dash by motorcycle for the border is fictional. It was made on the insistence of McQueen, a keen motorcyclist, and
has become one of the most famous action scenes of 1960s classic cinema. Furthermore, the motorcycle used in the film is a 1960s
Triumph 650 rather than an authentic, but considerably more pedestrian, BMW R 75 or Zündapp KS 750.
- The theft of a German airplane (in the film, an Me 108) by Hendley and Blythe is
also fictitious, although there was a failed attempt by Lorne Welch and Walter Morison to steal a plane following the delousing party escape a year
earlier.[3]
- The murders of the 50 airmen were conducted in small numbers, not en masse. Usually as the prisoners were being driven by
automobile, the men would be told to get out and stretch their legs, and would be killed by machine pistols or a gun pressed to
their head. The actual murders, and the manhunt for the perpetrators after the war, is outlined in the book Exemplary Justice.
- The Kommandant of Stalag Luft III, Oberst Von Liedener, was unlike the character
portrayed in the film.[4] In the film the commandant was
arrested as a result of the escape; in reality his arrest was due to his dealing with black market goods.
Other 'great' escapes
While 76 prisoners did escape from Stalag Luft III, larger escapes occurred during World War II:
- A total of 132 Allied prisoners of war were freed by Yugoslav Partisans in a
single operation in August 1944 in what is known as the raid at St Lorenzen. Almost
all were successfully airlifted to Bari in Italy several weeks later.
- The Cowra breakout, August 1944, Australia: 545
Japanese POWs attempted escape and/or suicide. 231 prisoners and four Australian
soldiers were killed and the surviving escapees were recaptured.
- At Sobibór extermination camp in October 1943, about 300 prisoners
escaped. Only about 50 escapees survived the war. They killed at least 11 SS and
Trawniki in the lead-up to the break.
- The escape from Oflag XVII-A Doellersheim, Germany. Of
131 French soldiers in September 1943 only two succeeded in evading recapture.
Sequels and remakes
A highly fictionalized, made-for-television sequel, The Great
Escape II: The Untold Story, appeared many years later. It starred Christopher
Reeve with Pleasence as an SS villain.
The Bollywood film Deewar: Let's Bring Our Heroes Back is based loosely on the same plot, although it involves a
prisoner's (Amitabh Bachchan) son (Akshay Khanna) aiding the escape from within.
The Great Escape in popular culture
- An ad for beer was made in the early 1990s and shown on British TV. It featured some of McQueen's scenes from the film and
included additional surreal footage with Griff Rhys
Jones.
- Some ads for the Hummer H3 in the fall of 2006 played the tune, as the employees of a
nondescript company plot a "Great escape" to drive their Hummers, with a parking lot booth attendant mimicking throwing a
baseball against the wall like Steve McQueen.
- An Australian Shell Oil television commercial from 1988 paid homage to Hilts' motorbike
escape by having the hero escape German soldiers but not before filling up his motorbike at an abandoned Shell petrol station.
However, unlike the movie, the hero manages to jump the last barricade and escape into the distance.
- This commercial was parodied in an episode of Fast Forward, with a
different ending. After completing the jump, the hero looks back in triumph, and is promptly gunned down by his pursuers. The
commercial's motto is then shown: "There is more than one kind of Shell".
- In The Simpsons episode A Streetcar
Named Marge (1992), Maggie plots a
"Great Escape" from the Ayn Rand School for Tots.
- The popular sitcom Hogan's Heroes was a spoof based on The Great Escape
and Stalag 17.
- In Red Dwarf episode "Queeg", Holly begins whistling the tune as a plan is set in
motion to oppose the demanding backup computer Queeg, while Lister and The Cat
scrub the floor to his whistling. In a later episode Pete: Part I a skutter (called Bob) keeps whistling the tune while helping Lister and Rimmer out of the trouble
they keep getting into (at that point, they are both serving a two-year sentence in the ship's brig).
- The animated film Chicken Run (2000)
contains many references. The film also references Stalag 17, considered (along with
"Escape") to be one of the greatest World War II prisoner-of-war movies.
- The Great Escape theme tune is used in an Australian beer advertisement for Tooheys, where people launch beer brewing
ingredients into the sky, eventually producing "beer rain".
- In the first Charlie's Angels movie, the character Bosley (played by
Bill Murray), while being held hostage by the criminals, has a baseball glove and is sitting
on the floor throwing a baseball against the wall like Steve McQueen.
- Owing to the fame and popularity of the film, countless other references are made in many other adverts, TV programmes and
movies alike.
- In football at the England National team games a group of fans called The England Supporters Band plays the great escape tune
with musical instruments (especially trumpet and drum) and the fans sing and clap to the tune.
- An episode of The Life and Times of Juniper Lee shares the
same name of the movie.
- In the PS2 video game Metal Gear
Solid 3, the character Major Zero initially adopts the
codename "Major Tom", in reference to the name of the tunnel used in The Great Escape to successfully escape. However,
after the failure of the first mission, Zero reveals that, upon watching the film again, the tunnel "Tom" was one of the two
discovered by the Stalag guards. He then returns to using "Major Zero," believing that his mistake brought bad luck upon the
Virtuous Mission. The name, however, is intended to be more of a reference to David Bowie's
Space Oddity.
- British stand-up comedian Eddie Izzard's 1997 "Dress To
Kill" performance included an 8-minute segment about "The Great Escape" in which Izzard humorously questioned the
plausibility of the movie's plot and the demoralizing fact that all the British characters ended tragically despite all their
cunning and planning while the Americans--notably Steve McQueen--survive. Known for his surrealist, stream-of-consciousness type
of stand-up comedy, Izzard would digress often during this particular routine as he tried to remember all the characters and
actors. This is exemplified best on the CD version of "Dress To Kill" where Izzard gets heckled by a fan during the Great Escape
bit, demanding that Izzard "moves on".
- An Australian music festival, held at Newington Armoury within the Homebush Olympic Development, bears the same name as the
movie. The festival originated as The Cockatoo Island Festival in 2005 then was
moved to Newington and the name changed to The Great Escape for the 2006
festival, which was held over the Easter long weekend. Following its success in 2006, The Great Escape returned to Newington
Armory over the Easter long weekend 2007 and a third outing is planned for Easter 2008.
- British comedy series Monty Python's Flying Circus once
referenced The Great Escape; in the episode "Mr And Mrs Brian Norris' Ford Popular", a sketch
featured three spokesmen for the weight-loss aid "Trim-Jeans", who were hosting "Trim-Jeans Theatre Presents", which featured
adaptations of famous films and plays featuring characters clad in Trim-Jeans and making references to losing weight during their
performance. The highlight of the show was "the Trim-Jeans version of 'The Great Escape', with a cast of thousands losing well
over fifteen hundred inches", and which featured nearly everyone in the film (Allied escapees and German guards--and even their
guard dogs) involved in a massive chase following the POW escape; a caption appeared during the chase proclaiming "INCHES LOST SO
FAR" with a counter that increased as the chase went on.
- Denton Designs and Ocean produced a 3D isometric game inspired
by the film in 1986, for ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64,
DOS and Amstrad CPC.
- In Reservoir Dogs the beginning lines feature Mr. Brown (Quentin Tarantino) referring to a man as being similar to Charles Bronson in The Great Escape
ads in "he's digging tunnels".
- In Michael Palin's and Terry Jones's
Ripping Yarns, there is an episode called "Escape from Stalag Luft 112B". It's
about Major Phipps a POW who keeps escaping from the Germans and ends up as the only man Never to escape from Stalag Luft
112B.
- In the American television show Supernatural, there are many references to The Great
Escape. The main characters, Sam Winchester and Dean Winchester, often refer to each other as McQueen and Garner during their own escapes from law
enforcement.
Additional production information
- Steve McQueen, an expert motorbiker, did most of
his own motorbike stunts, but some of the more dangerous stunts required the use of a double.
Bud Ekins, a friend and fellow motorbike enthusiast, happened to resemble McQueen
sufficiently, from a distance, to be able to do the stunts without audience members detecting the double. Ekins was only
on-screen for a few seconds, and his few shots were flawlessly edited together with the many individual shots of McQueen riding
alongside and between the fences. Ekins performed the 60-foot (≈18 m) jump over the inner Austrian/Swiss border fence. He also did the scene sliding his bike into the outer fence. According to the DVD
extra, McQueen did much of the bike work, even doubling as one of his own helmeted German pursuers. Ekins also later doubled for
McQueen in Bullitt.
- As noted by David McCallum in the DVD extra, the "barbed wire" that Hilts (Steve
McQueen) crashed into in the scene described above, was actually made of little strips of rubber tied around normal wire,
and was made by the cast and crew during their free time.
- At the time of the filming of the movie, David McCallum was married to actress Jill Ireland. Years later she would marry
fellow cast member Charles Bronson; that marriage would last until her death after a long battle with cancer. It is believed that
she met Bronson on the set of this film.
- The movie debuted at Culver Military Academy in Indiana because the Commandant of
the Academy was an allied prisoner of war in World War II and consultant on the film.
- Donald Pleasence had actually served in the Royal
Air Force during World War II. He was shot down, and spent a year in a German prisoner-of-war camp. Screenwriter
James Clavell served in the Royal Artillery, and
was captured by the Japanese. He was interned in Java and later to the notorious Changi Prison camp in Singapore. In an archival interview in the DVD
special, Pleasence said the prison camp was sufficiently realistic and that it was upsetting at first.
Books about The Great Escape
- The Great Escape, Paul Brickhill.
- The Tunnel King, The True Story of Wally Floody & the Great Escape,
Barbara Hehner. Publ.: Harper Trophy Canada 2004.
- The Longest Tunnel, Alan Burgess.
- "Tre kom tilbake" (Three returned)", the Norwegian book by surviving escapee Jens
Müller. Publ.: Gyldendal 1946.
- The Wooden Horse, Eric
Williams (about another escape from the same camp, Stalag Luft III).
- Exemplary Justice, Allen Andrews. Details the manhunt
by the Royal Air Force's special investigations unit after the war to find and bring to trial the perpetrators of the "Sagan
murders".
- Project Lessons from the Great Escape
(Stalag Luft III), Mark Kozak-Holland. The prisoners formally structured their work as a project. This book
analyzes their efforts using modern project management methods.
- 'Wings' Day, Sydney Smith, story of Wing Commander Harry "Wings"
Day Pan Books 1968 ISBN 0330024949
Notes
- ^ History in film - The Great Escape
- ^ The Great Escape: Heroes Underground documentary, available on
The Great Escape DVD Special Edition.
- ^ Morison, Walter (1995).
Flak and Ferrets. Sentinel Publishing. ISBN 1874767106.
- ^ Carroll, Tim (2004). The
Great Escapers. Mainstream Publishers. ISBN 1-84018-904-5.
External links
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