THE GREAT ESCAPE (1963).

THE GREAT ESCAPE is a 1963 American epic war suspense adventure film,starring Steve McQueen, James Garner and Richard Attenborough and featuring James Donald, Charles Bronson, Donald Pleasence, James Coburn, Hannes Messemer, David McCallum, Gordon Jackson, John Leyton and Angus Lennie. It was filmed in Panavision, and its musical score was composed by Elmer Bernstein.

Based on Paul Brickhill's 1950 non-fiction book of the same name, the film depicts a heavily fictionalized version of the mass escape by British Commonwealth prisoners of war from German POW camp Stalag Luft III during the Second World War. The film made numerous compromises for its commercial appeal, including its portrayal of American prisoners' involvement in the escape.

The Great Escape was made by The Mirisch Company, released by United Artists, and produced and directed by John Sturges. The film had its Royal World Premiere at the Odeon Leicester Square in London's West End on 20 June 1963.[3] The Great Escape received critical acclaim and emerged as one of the highest-grossing films of the year, winning McQueen the award for Best Actor at the Moscow International Film Festival, and is considered a classic.[5] The film is also noted for its motorcycle chase and jump scene, which is considered one of the best stunts ever performed.

PLOT:
In 1943, a group of Allied POWs who have repeatedly escaped from camps across the Third Reich are moved to a new camp under the command of Luftwaffe Colonel von Luger. He warns British Group Captain Ramsey—the highest-ranked POW officer and their de facto leader—that any man who escapes will be shot. Privately von Luger opposes such measures, but the Gestapo, tired of the disruption caused by breakouts elsewhere, has threatened to intervene if the Luftwaffe cannot stop them for good.

Several prisoners ignore the threat and attempt to escape on the first day, but none succeed. Hilts, a notoriously prolific escapee, notices a blind spot at the fence and purposefully gets caught before the guards can realize his discovery. Sentenced to "the cooler”,[9] he is placed in a cell next to Ives, and the two become friends.

RAF Squadron Leader Roger Bartlett re-establishes "the X Organisation", the escape-planning committee at their former camp, with Ramsey's tacit approval. He argues that they can help the Allied war effort by breaking out an unprecedented 250 men simultaneously, forcing the Germans to divert significant manpower away from the front.

The POWs begin working on three tunnels: "Tom", "Dick", and "Harry". Hendley secures vital objects on the black market and forms a bond with expert forger Blythe. Sedgwick makes picks and air bellows, Welinski and Dickes oversee the digging, MacDonald gathers intelligence, Griffith sews civilian disguises, and Ashley-Pitt devises a method of hiding the excavated dirt. Digging and manufacturing noise is masked by a choir, led by Cavendish, who also surveys the tunnels' routes. Aware that Hilts is planning to jump the fence, Bartlett asks him to scout out the surrounding area and then allow himself to be recaptured so he can draw maps for the X Organisation. Hilts refuses out of pride.

When "Tom" nears completion first, Bartlett orders "Dick" and "Harry" sealed off. Hilts, Hendley, and Goff brew potato moonshine with a homemade still and celebrate the Fourth of July with the camp, but the guards accidentally find "Tom" mid-party. A despondent Ives snaps, frantically climbs the fence, and is shot dead. Hilts, shaken, agrees to Bartlett's proposal.

Bartlett orders "Harry" reopened. When the tunnel partially collapses, Welinski breaks down and confides to Dickes that he is claustrophobic. He tries to climb the fence like Ives, but Dickes manages to calm him down and prevent him being shot. Blythe finds he is going blind due to progressive myopia, and Hendley takes it upon himself to be his eyes during the escape.

The prisoners complete "Harry", but on the night of the escape they break to the surface and find themselves 20 feet short of the forest, and still within sight of the guards. Guided by Hilts tugging on a rope as a signal—and aided by a fortuitous air raid blackout—dozens of men flee before Cavendish slips and makes a noise. An impatient Griffith surfaces while a guard investigates and is captured, ending the breakout.

The 76 escapees flee throughout Europe. Welinski and Dickes row to a port and board a ship for Sweden, while Sedgwick cycles to France, where the Resistance smuggles him to Spain. The rest are unsuccessful: Cavendish hitches a ride on a truck, but is turned in by the driver. Hilts steals a motorcycle and heads for the German-Swiss border, chased by soldiers, but after jumping one line of tank barriers his bike is shot and he is recaptured. Hendley and Blythe steal a Luftwaffe training plane to fly to Switzerland, but crash when the engine fails; Blythe is shot and Hendley recaptured. At a railway station, Kuhn, a Gestapo guard from the camp, helps search among the disembarking passengers for escapees; Ashley-Pitt kills him to prevent him recognizing Bartlett, and is then also shot dead. However, Bartlett and MacDonald are still caught when another Gestapo officer tricks MacDonald into speaking English while boarding a bus.

Fifty of the men, including Bartlett and MacDonald, are loaded into trucks, taken to a field, and shot dead on Hitler's direct orders. Hendley, hearing the news on his return to the camp with the survivors, asks Ramsey if the escape was worth it. Von Luger, ashamed by the murders, is relieved of command by the Gestapo and driven away to an uncertain fate, but as he leaves he tells a returning Hilts that it looks like the American will be the one who gets to see Berlin first. Hilts is sent to the cooler, where he begins planning his next escape.

CAST:
Steve McQueen as Captain Virgil Hilts ('The Cooler King'): one of three Americans in the camp, a particularly persistent escapee with an irreverent attitude.
James Garner as Flight Lieutenant Bob Hendley ('The Scrounger'): American RAF officer, responsible for finding materials on the black market for the escape attempt; forms a close friendship with Blythe.
Richard Attenborough as Squadron Leader Roger Bartlett ('Big X'): RAF officer and ringleader of the escape committee.
James Donald as Group Captain Ramsey ('The SBO'): most senior British & Allied officer in the camp, serves as an intermediary between the Germans and the POWs as their de facto leader.
Charles Bronson as Flight Lieutenant Danny Welinski ('Tunnel King'): Polish RAF officer; despite having dug 17 escape tunnels in other camps, is severely claustrophobic.
Donald Pleasence as Flight Lieutenant Colin Blythe ('The Forger'): mild-mannered English forger; forms close friendship with Hendley.
James Coburn as Flying Officer Sedgwick ('The Manufacturer'): an Australian officer who constructs tools for the escape.[note 1]
Hannes Messemer as Oberst von Luger ('The Kommandant'): Commandant of the camp and a senior Luftwaffe officer.
David McCallum as Lieutenant-Commander Eric Ashley-Pitt ('Dispersal'): a Fleet Air Arm officer; devises a way to get rid of the tunnel dirt.
Gordon Jackson as Flight Lieutenant Andy MacDonald ('Intelligence'): Bartlett's second-in-command.
John Leyton as Flight Lieutenant Willie Dickes ('Tunnel King'): Welinski's best friend and co-lead on tunnel design and construction.
Angus Lennie as Flying Officer Archie Ives ('The Mole'): anxious Scottish airman who befriends Hilts in the cooler.
Nigel Stock as Flight Lieutenant Dennis Cavendish ('The Surveyor'): surveys the tunnel routes.
Robert Graf as Werner ('The Ferret'): young, naive guard whom Hendley befriends and exploits for black market contraband.
Jud Taylor as Second Lieutenant Goff: the camp's third American.
Hans Reiser as Kuhn: Gestapo officer and ardent Nazi.
Harry Riebauer as Stabsfeldwebel Strachwitz: the senior NCO amongst the German guards.
William Russell as Sorren ('Security'): British officer.
Robert Freitag as Hauptmann Posen: von Luger's adjutant.
Ulrich Beiger as Preissen: Gestapo officer.
George Mikell as SD Hauptsturmführer Dietrich: SS officer.
Lawrence Montaigne as Haynes ('Diversions'): Canadian officer.
Robert Desmond as Griffith ('Tailor'): British officer; provides civilian clothes and military uniforms to disguise the escapees.
Til Kiwe as Frick
Heinz Weiss as Kramer
Tom Adams as Dai Nimmo ('Diversions'): Welsh officer.
Karl-Otto Alberty as SD Untersturmführer Steinach: SS officer.
Arthur Atkinson as British Officer Charlie (uncredited)

PRODUCTION:
WRITING:
In 1963, the Mirisch brothers worked with United Artists to adapt Paul Brickhill's 1950 book The Great Escape. Brickhill had been a very minor member of the X Organisation at Stalag Luft III, who acted as one of the "stooges" who monitored German movements in the camp. The story had been adapted as a live TV production, screened by NBC as an episode of The Philco Television Playhouse on January 27, 1951. The live broadcast was praised for engineering an ingenious set design for the live broadcast, including creating the illusion of tunnels. The film's screenplay was adapted by James Clavell, W. R. Burnett and Walter Newman.

Casting

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, Charles Bronson and James Coburn all had recently worked with director John Sturges on his 1960 motion picture, The Magnificent Seven.

Steve 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".[12] This film established his box-office clout. Hilts was based on at least three pilots, David M. Jones, John Dortch Lewis[13] and Bill Ash.[14][15][16]

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 World War II, 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" (Senior British Officer), was based on Group Captain Herbert Massey, a World War I veteran who had volunteered in World War II. 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 SBO 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 is likely to have 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 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 never shot down. Like his character, Danny Welinski, 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.[21]

Hannes Messemer's Commandant, "Colonel von Luger", was based on Oberst Friedrich Wilhelm von Lindeiner-Wildau.[22] Messemer 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.

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 to Sweden, Per Bergsland and Jens Müller, while the escape of Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Flying Officer Sedgwick, "the Manufacturer", to Spain, was based on Dutchman Bram van der Stok. James Coburn, an American, was cast in the role of 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.