Produced and Directed by John Sturgess - 1963 Poster
Rather like The Bridge on the River Kwai, it is the famous music that brings back any memories of the film. I read that one critic felt that the use of colour photography was unnecessary and jarring, but I don't think I agree with him. I have more sympathy with another critic from The New York Times, who wrote: The Great Escape grinds out its tormenting story without a peek beneath the surface of any man, without a real sense of human involvement. It's a strictly mechanical adventure with make-believe men. It's a bit harsh, however. I thought I could see a real human being in the German Kommandant (Hannes Messemer as Oberst von Luger).
As for the others, Richard Attenborough didn't have quite enough backbone for the part; David McCallum has always been a rather superficial actor; and Gordon Jackson was preparing for his role as the butler in Upstairs Downstairs! Donald Pleasence did his best, but he always comes across as rather creepy for me. James Donald popped up again from the River Kwai and rang true as the Senior British Officer in the camp. The Americans? Considering the original Paul Brickhill story had none in it, I must admit it appeared rather fanciful, in a British Commonwealth camp. One of the movie posters had A Glorious Saga of the R.A.F.! What grated, though, was the fact that whilst all the English and Scots escapees got killed, James Garner is recaptured (after a bolt-on episode with a Luftwaffe plane); Charles Bronson escapes aboard a ship with his mate; James Coburn is helped by the Resistance to escape to Spain; and Steve McQueen ruins a motorbike trying (actually a stunt double) to get to Switzerland via a double barbed-wire fencing (again, not in the book). If anyone should have been shot, it should be McQueen's character. However, the American audience lapped it up.
The camp itself was pretty realistic, having been built in a clearing of the Perlacher Forest. Other scenes, such as the railway station, were also filmed in Germany. I liked the German Kommandant's introductory speeches: This is a new camp. It has been built to hold you and your men. The idea was to put all our rotten eggs in one basket, and we intend to watch this basket carefully.
Digging for Victory! (and getting rid of the tunnels' soil)
The 4th of July celebrations, with the evil spirits drink made from rounding up all the potatoes was quite amusing. The film was accurate in that the real events it was roughly based on, also achieved only three successful escapees. However, there was no mass shooting of those captured, as seen in the movie; the real PoWs were taken out in pairs or small groups to be shot.
Stalag Luft III - north compound
The real watch tower at Stalag Luft III
The film grossed $11.7 million at the Box Office; its budget was $4 million. In an article for the British Film Institute "10 great prisoner of war films", Samuel Wigley described The Great Escape as the epitome of the war-is-fun action film... Well, okay; but it's not much fun being shot in cold blood.
2016 DVD
No comments:
Post a Comment