The Great Escape
1963
Director: John Sturges
Starring: Steve McQueen, David Attenborough, Charles Bronson, James Garner, James Coburn, Donald Pleasence, and lots and lots of other men.
When you think “Nazi POW film,” you don’t really think of a light-hearted romp. And yet, while I would refrain from calling The Great Escape a comedy, there is a levity to it that is both refreshing and wildly unexpected. That is one of the biggest reasons I love this film.
Sick of dealing with repeated escape attempts at other prisons, the Germans, rather unwisely, round up all the major POW escape artists and put them all in the same camp. Lead by their appointed commander “Big X,” (Attenborough) a grand plan to attempt to move 250 prisoners out of the camp at once begins to form. The film follows the construction of three separate escape tunnels, the escape itself (not really a spoiler, the title of the film gives that away), and the fates of the escaped POWs.
This is a war film unlike so many other war films. For one thing, we know the backstory of almost none of the characters. Steve McQueen’s Hilts mentions that he went to college for chemical engineering (a big woot from the chemistry teacher for that one!) and joined up after that, but that’s about it. We are not subjected to long winded speeches of “Before the war, I blah blah blah, and now that I’m here, I have to escape to get back to blah blah bloobity blah.” These men are not motivated by their desire to return to previous lives, but rather, by the simple need to escape. They cannot and will not accept being penned against their will. As their commander says, they will try to escape because it will tie up German resources fighting them, thus diverting the forces from the Allied Front.
