The Great Escape
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- For other uses, see The Great Escape (disambiguation)}}}.
The film was based upon the book of the same name by Paul Brickhill, who observed the actual events as a prisoner.
Featuring an all-star, Anglo-American cast — including Steve McQueen (whose motorcycle chase is the film's most remembered action scene), Richard Attenborough, James Coburn, James Garner, 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
The film opens with the large scale importation of Allied POW's into a new prison camp which the commandant proclaims is designed to be escape proof and meant to house the most notorious escapees from other German prisoner of war camps.
Roger Bartlett, known as "Big X" from the escape subterfuge he led at another camp, is reluctantly brought to the camp by the Gestapo where he finds that "every escape artist in Germany" is available for the largest escape yet attempted.
Assembling a specialized team of men to survey, dig, hide the dirt, manufacture civilian clothing, forge documents, provide security and distractions, and procure contraband materials, the prisoners begin three simultaneous tunnels out of the camp. After the first tunnel is discovered, the prisoners move all efforts into completing the third tunnel.
The tunnel is completed on the night of the escape and found to be twenty feet short of the wooded area that would provide cover. Seventy-five men escape into the woods before one is spotted coming out of the tunnel.
After various close and not so close attempts to enter neutral countries Switzerland, Sweden, and Spain, including Steve McQueen's famous motorcyle chase at the Swiss border, almost all of the escapees have been recaptured or died during their attempts. Only three of the escaped prisoners make it to safety.
But rather than being taken back to the camp, fifty of the captured prisoners are taken to an open field and gunned down. The rest of the recaptured men are taken back to the camp where the Senior British Officer is informed of the massacre and camp commandant Von Luger is removed.
Hollywood vs. history
The story was inspired by an actual escape from prison camp Stalag Luft III in 1944. While the film condenses various aspects of time and place, a disclaimer claims it to be true to the original as much as possible. This includes the details of the plans, escape tunnels, successes and tragic result of the "great escape". Paul Brickhill, an inmate of the camp, wrote an account of the escape under the same name, upon which the film was based.
Few Americans were involved in the escape accordingly only three Americans are in the entire prison camp in the movie (though there were several American actors portraying other nationalities). In the camp, the Americans present were serving in either the British or Canadian military, primarily the RAF or RCAF.
One of the movie camp's three Americans is an RAF officer, who is challenged by a German guard, Werner, at the opening of the film, "Why do you fight for England, your enemy?" The guard mentions the White House burning of 1812, which the American character subsequently dismisses as "Pure propaganda!"
In the actual camp, the POWs were primarily British, Canadian and Australian, and the film does its best to reflect this. Refer to the prison camp link for more historical details.
Film plot
After years of exhausting manpower and resources on the homefront in the recapture of escaped Allied POW's, the Germans decide to put all the chronic escapers into a maximum-security prison camp. The new Allied arrivals examine the prison camp to find it lined with barbed wire and armed guard towers. Moreover, all of their huts are raised above the ground, making any tunneling easily detectable. RAF Group Captain Rupert Ramsey (James Donald), the Senior British Officer, meets with camp commandant Colonel von Luger (Hannes Messemer). Von Luger expresses his frustration to Ramsey over the chronic escape attempts of his men. Ramsey reminds him that it is the duty of every officer to attempt to escape. Von Luger understands and that is why the Germans have built this new camp: "We have put all the rotten eggs in one basket, and we intend to watch this basket carefully." Von Luger tells him that life will be pleasant in the Luftwaffe camp, that there will be sports, recreation, and tools for gardening and he suggests that Ramsey and his men sit out the remainder of the war in relative comfort.
Meanwhile, several men unsuccessfully attempt "blitz out" escapes on the first day. Flight Lt. Danny Velinski (Bronson), a Pole serving in the RAF and Flying Officer Louis Sedgwick (Coburn), an Australian, attempt to hide themselves among the Russian laborers leaving the camp. Flying Officer Archibald Ives (Angus Lennie) and Flight Lt. William Dickes (John Leyton) dive into the tree-laden beds of German trucks driving out of the camp. All the would-be escapees are easily caught. Captain Virgil Hilts (McQueen), a cool-mannered American loner, discovers a blind spot in the barbed wire between the two guard towers. He is shot at from the towers as he moves away from the spot and engages in an insolent exchange with Col. von Luger in front of all the men in the camp. As von Luger tells Hilts that he has had the pleasure of knowing many British officers who were are all so much more civilized than ill-mannered Americans such as Hilts, Ives blows a raspberry. Both Ives and Hilts are thrown into the camp's cooler (isolation chamber) for twenty days. In the cooler, Hilts stays silent, throwing his baseball against the wall. After much cajoling from the talkative Ives, Hilts finally reveals that he studied chemical engineering in the States but picked up some money on the side by riding motorcycles. As Ives tells Hilts of his days as a jockey in Scotland and as a tunnel man in prison camps, Hilts quietly thinks about his next escape.
RAF Squadron Leader Roger "Big X" Bartlett (Attenborough), mastermind of escapes in several prison camps, is delivered personally to von Luger by the Gestapo and the SS. Herr Kuhn, a Gestapo agent, warns Bartlett that should he attempt another escape, he will be shot. Von Luger bristles at the Gestapo's and SS's impinging on the affairs of the Luftwaffe; Allied air force personnel are not the responsibility of the Gestapo, he maintains. The Gestapo men counter that the Luftwaffe have simply not got the job done and should they fail this time, under maximum security, the Gestapo will take matters into their own hands. The Gestapo leaves Bartlett in von Luger's charge with a "Heil Hitler" salute, which is not readily returned by the Colonel until he realizes the agents are still waiting in his office, staring. Flustered, with a nervous laugh, von Luger offers a quiet "Heil Hitler" salute.
Ramsey meets with Bartlett and reveals that nearly all the men from the "X Organization", a group who painstakingly organized a previous break-out, are together again. He inquires about Bartlett's torture at the hands of the Gestapo. Bartlett doesn't want to discuss it and instead focuses on his revenge: a new escape. Ramsey reminds Bartlett that this camp is run by the Luftwaffe, not the Gestapo or the SS but Bartlett angrily rejoins that to him, they are the same thing, "the common enemy of anyone who believes in freedom". Ramsey gives his approval. The first "Meeting X" is held that night. Bartlett tells the gathered men that he wants an unprecedented escape, something the Germans have never before seen, something that will tie up resources in Germany chasing after escaped officers all across the country. He wants to break out two hundred and fifty men, a figure met with gasps by even those seasoned escape experts. He then gives the men their usual assignments: Danny and Willie are tunnellers, Sedgwick is the manufacturer, Royal Navy Lt. Cmdr Eric Ashley-Pitt (David McCallum) is in earth dispersal, Flight Lt. Sandy "Mac" MacDonald (Gordon Jackson) is in intelligence and Flight Lt. Dennis Cavendish (Nigel Stock) is the surveyor. Bartlett is introduced to an American attending the meeting, Flight Lt. Bob Hendley (Garner) of the RAF Eagle Squadron, who was previously seen surreptitiously lifting tools from a German truck. According to Mac's intelligence, Hendley is the best there is at getting whatever's needed and is duly named scrounger. Flight Lt. Colin Blythe (Pleasence) shows up late to the meeting and is assigned to his "usual job" by Bartlett. Hendley studies Blythe, an unassuming, mild-mannered, bald Englishman carefully. It turns out that Hendley and Blythe are roommates and later, in their room, Blythe offers Hendley some tea. Hendley declines, saying the only time he's ever had tea in his entire life was when he was in the hospital. Hendley continues to study Blythe, who bemoans the lack of milk ("tea without milk is so uncivilized") and Hendley, without prompting, obligingly steals some. After he gives Blythe the milk, Hendley finally breaks down and asks what Blythe does here. Blythe replies, "I'm the forger".
Much of the middle of the movie consists of the men ingeniously working towards The Great Escape. They construct three tunnels (nicknamed "Tom", "Dick" and "Harry") around drainage pipes to avoid easy detection. The entire camp is in on it: Sedgwick has teams of men helping him manufacture needed machinery such as pull-carts and air pumps, Danny and Willie have legions of tunnellers under their command and so forth. Whenever a German guard comes even within a hundred feet (30 m) of their construction, an elaborate system of signals is given by several men between the guard and the construction site so that they have time to hide their tools and cover up any traces of the tunnel. To drown out the hammering of a pick into the concrete floor, a gardener outside hammers a stake into the ground, and Danny hammers in time. To drown out Sedgwick's men, a large chorus stands outside the hut and makes the pretense of practicing "O Come All Ye Faithful". One early problem is how to dispose of the earth from the tunnels, which is a different color from the soil in the compound. Ashley-Pitt comes up with a contrivance for hiding bags of dirt in the legs of a man's trousers; a tug at strings in the pockets and the dirt spills out. "Then you just kick it in." The men of the camp use the device to dispose of dirt while making a show of practicing marching formations or gardening. Hendley makes conversation with a high-strung German guard named Werner (Robert Graf), who finds the camp's conditions intolerable but refuses to complain lest he be sent to the Russian front. Hendley invites Werner into his room for coffee. As Hendley innocently empties out the contents of his well-stocked larder, including Col. von Luger's Danish butter, it dawns on Werner that Hendley has stolen it all. Werner breaks for the door so he can report it, but Hendley runs up and tries to stop him. Werner extricates himself from Hendley and leaves and after Werner is gone, Hendley flips open Werner's wallet, which he took while he made the pretense of trying to stop Werner from leaving the room. Hendley then enters a hut where Colin is lecturing dozens of prisoners in a bird-drawing class. As soon as the German guard leaves, however, the men lift planks in the tables to reveal forged documents they have been working on under Colin's supervision. Colin complains to Bartlett and Mac that he has no idea what some of the new documents look like when Hendley gives Colin the wallet which contains all the official papers the escapees will need to copy. Mac, suitably impressed, asks Hendley where he got it. "It's on loan." Later, Werner bursts into Hendley and Colin's room while the two are playing chess. Shaking, he tells Hendley he lost his wallet and that he must have lost it in here. Hendley sympathetically tells Colin that it would be a shame if the commandant found out, or else Werner would be off to the Russian front. Hendley assures Werner that he'll find it for him and Werner, grateful for Hendley's help, starts to leave. As Werner goes out the door, Hendley tells Werner that he wants just one thing in return: a camera. "We want to take some pictures. Souvenirs." Werner looks stricken but is too jittery to say anything and leaves the room.
Meanwhile, Hilts and Ives are let out of the cooler. They are summoned to meet Mac, Bartlett and Ramsey. Mac has discovered that the two are planning a blitz-out and Bartlett needs to clear it. Hilts calmly explains their plan: under the cover of night, go to the blind spot in the barbed wire, tunnel three feet down (about 1 m) by hand, burrow under the fence, tunnel out into the woods, resurface, and be miles from the camp before anyone knows they're missing. Ramsey suggests that this may not be the right time but Ives insists that he's been in the camps for too long, and he's been going "wire-happy". Bartlett wishes them luck. After they leave, Mac suggests that Hilts's and Ives's plan is "so stupid it's positively brilliant. Why didn't anybody think of that before?" Nonetheless, Mac thinks that they might bring greater scrutiny to the rest of the camp's effort at the collective break-out but Bartlett says that if they squelch every escape attempt, the guards will know they're up to something. Ramsey says that he hopes they succeed, for their sake, because if they don't, they'll be locked up for a very long time. The very next scene shows Hilts and Ives, caked with dirt, with their hands across their heads being led back into the cooler. Ives is thrown in his cell and starts to cry.
The men make the final preparations for the tunnel. When Hilts and Ives are let out of the cooler again, Bartlett and Mac talk to Hilts alone. They ask if he has another blitz-out planned and he tells them so. They ask if Ives is going with him, and Hilts replies, "If he wants to". They suggest that Ives is close to breaking, and that it would be safer if he went in the tunnel. Hilts thinks about this quietly. Finally, they tell Hilts that they have the escape planned out fully and ready for action but what they don't know is what's beyond the woods surrounding the camp. Hilts sees where this is going and coolly tells them to forget it; he won't be making maps for them when he escapes. Then the realization dawns on him that they're actually suggesting that he escape, scout out the surrounding area and intentionally get himself caught. Hilts grows indignant and angrily refuses.
Later, Hilts and Hendley lead the camp's small contingent of Americans in a celebration. They drink from an illegal still they've constructed, don colonial hats and march around the camp playing "Yankee Doodle" on a flute and drum. The rest of the camp slowly realizes that they're celebrating the American Revolution; it's the 4th of July. The Americans march up to Bartlett and Ramsey and offer them and all the men in the camp, a drink with the Colonials. They readily accept. The entire camp is in high spirits. Mac calls on a despondent Ives, tells him it's good to be having him in the tunnel with the rest of them and consoles him that he'll be back in Scotland in no time. The two Scots then sing a traditional Scottish song together merrily but during the celebration, the German guards discover their tunnel on a chance inspection. As the rest of the camp is in a panic, a broken Ives walks away from the crowd and goes over to the barbed wire. Hilts spots him and runs over to stop him but Ives has already reached the wire and tries to climb it. He does not heed the calls to halt and is shot dead by the guards, his body still clinging to the wire. Hilts clutches Ives's fallen hat for a few moments, then strides up to Bartlett and tells him that he'll be going out tonight and scouting the whole area. Bartlett then gives the order to open up one of the unused tunnels. "We dig. Round the clock."
The Germans find a hole in the barbed wire the next morning. Soon, Hilts arrives back into the camp in the custody of a German soldier, gives a nod at Bartlett and is taken into the cooler. Again the camp makes its final preparations to break out. The X Organization's tailors have constructed clothes for the operation, including both German uniforms and civilian clothes. Some men will pose as German soldiers, some will pose as German civilians, others will pose as men from neutral countries. The men practice the pass inspection routine. Mac inspects their passes, asks them in German who they are and why they are traveling and they respond. After Nimoy (dressed as a Luftwaffe soldier) gives his explanation, Mac says "Your German is very good". "Thanks, Mac, I've really been working hard," he replies, before trailing off, realizing he made a mistake. Mac tells to watch it, "don't fall for that old gag!"
One night soon before the planned escape, Colin discovers, to his shock, that he can't read the forged documents anymore. He tries to use a magnifying glass, but still can't discern anything beyond a blur. "I can't see a bloody thing." He is later seen in his bedroom, feeling his way across the room. He puts a pin down at the far end of the room by the wall and measures how many paces it is to the door. Bartlett comes in soon thereafter and first tells Colin that without his help, none of this would have been possible. Then he tells him he can't go. Colin, distraught, asks why not. "Because you can't see your hand in front of your face." Colin insists that's preposterous, he can see perfectly and he points out the pin at the far end of the room. Bartlett can't see it, so Colin goes over, bends down methodically, and picks it up, smiling. Bartlett sticks his leg out and asks Colin to put the pin at the foot of the door. Colin tries to oblige, but trips over Bartlett's leg. Bartlett catches him and consoles him that it was a good try, but he simply can't go; a blind man is a danger to himself and everyone else. Hendley, an observer to all this, speaks up: "Colin's not a blind man so long as he's got me and he's going with me." Bartlett agrees. After he leaves, Hendley asks Colin to make the two of them some tea.
Danny is working on the last stretches of the tunnel when the tunnel caves in on him. Panicked, his men at the foot of the tunnel ask whether he can hear them and whether he's all right. Slowly, painfully, Danny claws his way out of the dirt, and hoarsely screams, "I'm all right. I'm all right!" The night before the break-out, Danny is seen stalking around outside with wire clippers, avoiding the roving spotlights. Willie goes out into the night, chases after him, and tackles him. Willie asks if he's trying to get himself killed. Danny says that he can't go in the tunnel anymore, and he's going to break out tonight and tries to shove Willie off and head for the fence. Willie punches him across the face and tells him that they're going to go through the tunnel. Danny looks as though he's going to hit Willie over the head with the clippers, but then softens as he realizes it's his best friend. He calmly explains that since he was a small boy, he has hated and feared closets, little rooms and closed spaces. Incredulous, Willie exclaims that Danny's dug over seventeen tunnels since being captured. Danny replies, "Because I must get out." He's afraid that if he goes into the tunnel tomorrow, he might panic and ruin the escape for everybody. He makes one last break for the fence, but Willie trips him and restrains him. Willie tells Danny he'll be with him all the way and make sure he's all right. They head back for their huts just as the guards are coming to investigate the noise.
On the night of the escape, the men quietly make their way into the hut, decked out in their escape clothes. Hendley and Colin walk together; Hendley steers Colin just as he's about to walk into a beam. Danny and Willie wait close to the end of the tunnel, where Hilts is digging up to the surface but Danny can't hold it out much longer. Willie tries to appease his friend, talking encouragingly about escaping but Danny is breaking. Just as Bartlett and Mac are coming up the tunnel to escape, Danny tells Willie he can't take it anymore and goes back up the tunnel into the hut. As Danny crosses him in the tunnel, a bewildered Bartlett asks him what the matter is, and Danny replies that he built this tunnel with his own hands and he'll go whenever he wants to. When Willie follows Danny and explains the situation to Roger, Bartlett is less than sympathetic. Danny hoists his way out of the tunnel, rushes over to the window of the hut, and presses himself against it, crying. Willie follows him. He gently tells Danny that when Warsaw fell, Danny escaped to fight with the British, to fight the Germans because he was a flier. Now they have a chance to escape and get back to England. "Danny, if you don't go through that tunnel, everything you've done will have been for nothing. Nothing!"
Bartlett, Mac and Hilts are at the end of the tunnel. Hilts uses a stick to poke a hole above their heads. Eventually, he's able to feel some green grass and smilingly, hands it to Mac and Bartlett. Hilts cautiously pokes his head out and looks around. They had tunnelled out of the camp but had tunnelled short of the woods and there are guards patrolling right outside the camp. He ducks back down to Mac and Bartlett and tells them they're twenty feet short. Mac suggests that maybe they go out some other day but Bartlett says that all the forged documents are dated: "It's now or never". Hilts pokes his head out again, looks at the woods, ducks back down and tells them that he could run out to the woods in the darkness and set up a signal for when it's safe for the next man to go, using a tug on a rope. Bartlett agrees, and once the rope is retrieved, Hilts is the first man to go out of the tunnel. He ties the rope around the tree and waits for the patrolman to move to the far side of the compound. Bartlett and MacDonald wait underground at the tunnel's end to send along their men. The first man up the tunnel is Ashley-Pitt, lying on the pull-cart, pulled up on along the rails by Bartlett. As soon as Hilts tugs the rope, Ashley-Pitt tells the two, "See you in Piccadilly", surfaces and runs out into the woods. The next are Hendley and Colin. Danny has gathered his nerve and goes back into the tunnel with Willie all the assembled men clear out of his way respectfully. Unfortunately, just as they're coming up the tunnel, an air raid hits the nearby town and the lights in the tunnel go out. Danny panics and becomes hysterical. Roger is shouting at them down the tunnel, saying that they can get dozens out in this darkness. Willie grabs Danny and lights a nearby candle, calming him down. Finally, the two emerge and escape.
Under the cover of darkness, dozens of men escape; the rope signal is not needed. However, the lights come back eventually and Hilts goes back on the rope. Mac and Bartlett surface and meet Hilts at the edge of the woods. The next man up is Cavendish, but just as he emerges, he trips and lands on his parcel, making a noise that arouses the attention of the patrolmen. Cavendish lies flat on the ground, silent. The guard flashes his light around but doesn't detect Cavendish. Meanwhile, the next man sits at the base of the tunnel, impatiently waiting for the tug of the rope. After several moments, he decides to emerge on his own accord and the guards who went to inspect the noise see him immediately. "Don't shoot!", he cries. To confuse the guards and help those who have made it to the surface escape, Hilts comes out of the woods and also screams "Don't shoot!" Back and forth volley the cries of "Don't shoot!". The Germans don't know what to shoot at and in the confusion, Cavendish, Hilts, Mac, and Bartlett manage to escape.
The next morning, the remaining prisoners learn that seventy-six men escaped from the camp. Many of the escapees – including Hendley, Blythe, Ashley-Pitt, MacDonald and Bartlett – are all at the same train station that morning, awkwardly avoiding each other's glances, trying not to look suspicious as they wait for the train. Eventually, they all board. Gestapo agents roam through the train. All of them have documents and plausible stories prepared, except for Colin and Hendley on account of Colin's blindness. Mac and Bartlett, travelling together, successfully pass for French civilians. Ashley-Pitt poses as a German businessman. Colin and Hendley decide to jump out of the train before the policemen can reach them.
Hilts has constructed a tripwire and waits for a German soldier to come by on a motorbike. He steals his uniform and motorcycle and takes off for the Swiss border. Unfortunately, he encounters some soldiers also on motorbikes along the way who want to see his papers and rather than answer them, he kicks his inquistor over and drives off. After a thrilling chase, he manages to elude them and heads on for Switzerland.
Hendley and Colin come onto a small airbase. Hendley knocks out a guard, hijacks a small trainer plane and the two fly off for Switzerland. Hilts continues on his motorcycle. Danny and Willie emerge from a field onto a river where they find a rowing boat. Sedgwick clips a lock off a bicycle and rides across the countryside until he reaches a freight train and stows away. Cavendish hitches a ride on a truck.
The train ride ends and the passengers disembark. They line up for pass inspection. Ashley-Pitt notices a man nearby stare at MacDonald and Bartlett from a distance; it is the Gestapo agent, Kuhn, from the beginning of the film. "Bartlett!" he says to himself, and draws his gun. Just as he does, Ashley-Pitt wrestles him to the ground, wrests his gun out of the hand, and shoots him through the heart. He gets up and runs but German soldiers shoot him from behind. He staggers to the train tracks and dies. In the confusion, Mac and Bartlett escape from the crowd.
Hendley's and Colin's plane begins to sputter about twenty minutes from Switzerland. They are forced to crash-land on the German countryside, Hendley restraining Colin with his arm. Colin escapes serious injury, but Hendley is stuck in the plane wreckage, his face bloodied. He shoves Colin forward, telling him to go on, he's right behind him. Colin moves out and doesn't notice that he is on a hilltop, with dozens of German soldiers below him, aiming for him, signalling for him to surrender. Unaware of this, he turns his back on them to talk to Hendley and is shot. Hendley rushes out for him, apologizing to his friend for fouling things up, but Colin tells him it's all right, it's not his fault and thanks him for getting him out. He dies.
Mac and Bartlett are getting ready to board a bus. They converse in French with a Gestapo officer who is inspecting their passes; everything is in order. Just as they board the bus, the guard says, "Good luck." Mac turns around and says, "Thank you." With absolute horror, he immediately realizes his mistake and the two of them jump off the bus and separate. The constable screams "Engländer!" as soldiers chase after them. Mac is soon surrounded and captured. Bartlett scrambles across rooftops to avoid the soldiers.
Cavendish, unfortunately, has been driven straight to the Gestapo by the trucker with whom he was riding. He converses with the German agent, who tells him that he must be a spy because he is wearing civilian clothes. "Spies are being shot." Cavendish explained his civilian clothes by saying he recut his uniform when he lost weight, dyed it with boot polish when he found an oil stain on it, and lost his insignia over the years. The Gestapo agent orders him put in the cell "with the others", where Cavendish is somberly reunited with dozens of other camp escapees.
Sedgwick makes it to France. He sits in an outdoor café, nervously hiding behind a newspaper from a group of German officers sitting nearby. Suddenly, the phone of the café rings. The waiter picks it up, comes up the Sedgwick and says, "Monsieur, téléphone pour vous." Startled, Sedgwick says, "Téléphone pour moi?" "Oui, téléphone pour vous." The man directs Sedgwick behind a counter to the phone. Just as he takes the receiver, a car drives up. A machine gun is stuck out the window and all the German soldiers are shot dead, and the car drives off. The waiters of the café happily pour themselves glasses of wine, toast and drink it. Sedgwick realizes it's the French Resistance. Sedgwick then explains that he just escaped from a POW camp in Germany and is trying to make it to Spain; he asks if they can help. Sirens approach in the distance. The waiter tells him he knows someone who can and they hurriedly run off.
Bartlett is accosted by a group of German soldiers. The head soldier points a gun at him but he feigns genuine surprise in (for the non-german audience) perfect German. The German tries to trip him up by speaking English, but Bartlett doesn't fall for it. The soldier, now convinced that he's a German, then says "Ach, Sie sind Deutscher!" and Bartlett replies, "Selbstverständlich!" The soldier apologizes and they drive off. Bartlett, shaken from the close call, runs into an alleyway, out of breath. A voice from behind says "Herr Bartlett?" Bartlett turns around to face an SS officer, and feigns confusion in German. "Your German is very good. And I hear also your French. Your arms, up!" Bartlett, realizing it's over, slowly surrenders.
Hilts is riding on his motorcycle and the Swiss border, lined with two barbed-wire barricades, is in sight. He can't go through the inspection point so he races out onto a field along the barricades. Dozens of soldiers are chasing him now. He goes as far as he can until dozens more armed German soldiers scramble over a hill just ahead of him. Hilts turns around, speeds up his bike, shoots into the air, and clears the first barricade, landing perfectly. The second barricade is too big to jump over but he's not far from a break in it. A few feet away from the break, soldiers shoot at his bike. He falls, entangled in the barbed wire of the second barricade, his motorcycle leaking gasoline. Futilely reaching for Switzerland with a bloodied hand, he finally rises, puts his hands up, and bitterly shows the soldiers his captain's insignia that he had sewn into the inside of his undershirt.
Bartlett is taken into the Gestapo center that Cavendish and the others had already been through. "Ah! Herr Bartlett and Herr MacDonald!" Bartlett looks over and sees a forlorn Mac sitting nearby. "You are going to wish you had never put us to so much trouble." In the next scene, Mac and Bartlett are with the other men, riding back in the truck. Bartlett is a little concerned about what's going to happen, saying he expected a long stay or a short trip, but Mac tells him not to worry. "I think you did a damn good job. I think we all did." The soldiers stop the truck, open up the back flap, and tell the men to stretch their legs because it will be several hours before they reach the camp. Bartlett, Mac, Cavendish, and dozens of others disembark. Bartlett confides in Mac that all the work they did, all the tunneling and organization, kept him alive, and even though they didn't make it, he's never been happier. "You know, Mac..." he continues, but stops short when he turns around and sees German soldiers readying a machine gun in front of them. Bartlett and his men, realizing, slowly take on looks of sheer terror just before the shots ring out.
Ramsey meets with Col. von Luger who unable to look Ramsey in the eye and speaking in a shocked and broken tone, tells Ramsey that eleven men of his are being returned today and that a "higher authority" directs von Luger to announce that fifty of Ramsey's men were shot while escaping. He hands Ramsey a list of the dead. Ramsey wants to know how many were wounded. Von Luger softly says, "None."
Danny and Willie row up to a large ship and climb up the waiting ladder. Sedgwick, en route to Spain, emerges from the bushes and thanks his guides in French, who turn and leave. He hears a noise that startles him and turns to face a man staring at him. "I am your guide, señor." Sedgwick and his new guide look at the countryside ahead. "Spain?" Sedgwick asks. "España," the guard replies. The two forge on.
Ramsey receives the eleven men, including Hendley and asks where Colin is. Hendley says he didn't make it. "Roger was right about that." Ramsey, with difficulty, tells him that Roger didn't make it either: "Fifty. The Gestapo murdered them." Ramsey concludes, "Roger's idea was to get back at the enemy the hardest way he could. Mess up the works. From what we've heard here, I think he did exactly that." When Hendley asks if he thinks it was worth it, Ramsey replies, "I suppose that all depends on your point of view, Hendley."
Hilts is delivered back to the camp. He is about to salute von Luger, but is instructed by the Germans not to because the colonel is no longer in command. Von Luger tells Hilts that he is lucky. Hilts is at first bemused by this but then realizes: "How many?" "Fifty. It looks, after all, as if you will see Berlin before I do." As the Germans drive off with von Luger, the camp gathers around admiringly as Hilts is taken back to his familiar home: the cooler. Someone tosses him his baseball and glove. He is thrown into the cooler by the soldier. The soldier turns around to walk out of the cooler when he stops and listens to the familiar sound of the baseball bouncing against the floor, the wall and back into Hilts's glove over and over again. The movie ends with the on-screen valediction: "This picture is dedicated to the fifty."
Sequels and remakes
A highly fictionalized, made-for-television sequel, , appeared many years later. It starred Christopher Reeve and interestingly, Pleasence as an SS villain.
In 2003 it was announced that actor Jean-Claude van Damme wanted to do a remake.
2003 also saw the release of a video game based on the film for the PC, PlayStation 2 and Xbox consoles.
The Great Escape in popular culture
- An Australian Shell Oil television commercial from 1988 paid homage to Hilts' motorcycle escape by having the hero escape German soldiers but not before filling up his motorcycle at an abandoned Shell gas 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.
- In the Cheers episode "How to Marry a Mailman", in which the hapless Cliff Clavin suffers "hysterical blindness" upon a visit from his Canadian girlfriend, Cliff goes to great lengths in order to hide the fact he has lost his vision, including the methodical placement of a coin on the ground for him to "spot" and pick up, much like Colin Blythe did with a pin in the film. Unlike Colin, however, the insecure Cliff does not even wait to be accused of having lost his vision.
- In Red Dwarf episode "Queeg", Lister and The Cat begin whistling the tune as a plan is set in motion to oppose the demanding backup computer, Queeg.
- In the 1994 film The Shawshank Redemption, prisoner Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) disperses debris from a tunnel operation in the exercise yard in the same manner as the inmates of Stalag Luft III.
- 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 POW movies.
- The Great Escape is also the name of a 1995 album by British band Blur. It reached #1 in the UK charts.
- Madagascar (film) has the penguins planning an escape from the zoo by digging tunnels, obviously a takeoff on "The Great Escape", and the leader of the penguins is short and pudgy like the character played by Richard Attenborough.
- Monty Python did a send-up of the movie on the Flying Circus, titled the Trim Jeans version of the Great Escape, in which everyone wears puffy golden trim jeans over their uniforms.
- Former Monty Python cast members Michael Palin and Terry Jones parodied The Great Escape in their Ripping Yarns series, in an episode entitled "Escape from Stalag Luft 112 B", about a prisoner whose myriad, overly perfectionist escape plans take so long to complete that the war ends before he is able to go through with any of them.
- Naked Gun 33 1/3 featured a parody of the Great Escape, hiding the dirt in various madcap and otherwise zany ways.
- In association football (soccer), "The Great Escape" has become a meme for a club's improbable escape from relegation. After the English Premier League 2004-05 season, the term was widely used in association with the escape of West Bromwich Albion from near-certain relegation. In fact, after Albion's final match and the assurance of their safety in the Premiership, the theme tune was played over the sound system at The Hawthorns while ecstatic fans stormed the pitch.
- British comedian Eddie Izzard is a fan of the film and performs an extended section of his Dress to Kill monologue about "the greatest escape in the history of people escaping from things they shouldn't escape from".
- England football (soccer) fans often hum or whistle the theme tune of The Great Escape during international matches against Germany, as a taunt towards the German fans.
- 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".
Video games
- The Great Escape is also the title for two different video games. One published by Ocean in 1986 [link][link][link] for ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC and in 2003 by UK developer Pivotal Games. Publisher, SCi (now known as Eidos) had purchased the rights for the game from MGM. The game was released on Playstation 2, PC and Xbox. It reached No.2 in the UK charts upon release.[link]
Trivia
- Charles Bronson and David McCallum were both married to English actress Jill Ireland: McCallum from May 11, 1957 until 1967, Bronson from October 5, 1968 until her death on May 18, 1990.
- This film shares three of its stars (Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson and James Coburn), its director and producer (John Sturges) and its composer (Elmer Bernstein) with The Magnificent Seven. Both films also feature one of the stars of The Man from U.N.C.L.E.: David McCallum appears in this film while Robert Vaughn appeared in the earlier one.
- Richard Attenborough (Roger "Big X" Bartlett), James Garner (Flight Lt. Bob Anthony "The Scrounger" Hendley) and David McCallum (Lt. Commander Eric "Dispersal" Ashley-Pitt) are the only stars of the film still living.
- Steve McQueen did most of his own motorcycle stunts. The only stunt he didn't perform was the 60-foot (≈18 m) jump over the Austrian/Swiss border fence. That stunt was performed by stuntman Bud Ekins, who also doubled for McQueen in Bullitt.
- According to David McCallum, the barbed wire that Hilts (Steve McQueen) crashes into near the end of the film, which was actually made of rubber, was made by the cast and crew during their free time by tying small pieces of rubber around larger ones.
- The Gestapo car of choice was the Mercedes-Benz 260D, not the BMW Model 326 which the Nazi characters used in the movie.
- While most of the film is based on events, two events were fabricated: Steve McQueen's motorcycle scenes and the theft of a German airplane by Hendley and Blythe.
- The real Great Escape began on March 24, 1944, Steve McQueen's fourteenth birthday.
- The Movie debuted at Culver Military Academy in Indiana because the Commandant of the Academy was an allied POW in World War II and consultant on the film.
Books about The Great Escape
- The Great Escape, Paul Brickhill
- The Longest Tunnel, Alan Burgess
- The Wooden Horse, Eric Williams (about another escape from the same camp, Stalag Luft III)
External links
- [The Real Great Escape]
- [Great Escape (PBS Nova)]
- [Detailed information about the real event]
- [Exhibition about this and other escapes at the Imperial War Museum, London (until 31 July 2006)]
- [First hand account of Stalag Luft III by Wing Commander Ken Rees]
- [Pivotal Games site for the computer game version of The Great Escape]
- [World of Sinclair entry for the 1986 video game]
- [link]
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