The Greatest World War II P.O.W. Movie Since "Stalag 17!"

Rating: 10/10 (9 July 2009)

Director John Sturges had been struggling for eleven years to produce a movie based on Paul Brickhill's non-fiction bestseller "The Great Escape" (1949), an autobiographical account of one of the largest Allied prisoner of war break out attempts in World War II. An Australian Royal Air Force pilot, who had been incarcerated in Stalag Luft III, Brickhill documented the escape of 250 British POWs to tie up German troops behind the lines. The plan involved the digging of three tunnels far beneath the ground to avoid sound detection from microphones buried in the earth. The POWs considered every angle of this massive enterprise. Tailors converted uniforms into civilian clothing. Forges duplicated passes, permits, identity cards. Not only did the tunnels have to be excavated, but the POWs also had to dispose of the soil without arousing the suspicions. Brickhill participated in the two-year long escape plan and served as the man in charge of the security stooges who shielded the forgers from the German security guards that acted as 'ferrets' trying to flush out escape attempts. British South African pilot Roger Bushnel, head of the escape committee, envisaged taking out 250, but only 76 managed to getaway before the Germans discovered them. Eventually, only three escaped, while the Germans recovered another 23 men. The Gestapo captured the remaining fifty and Adolph Hitler ordered them executed by firing squad.
The problem that Sturges encountered when he pitched the idea to various producers, among them Samuel Goldwyn, was the ironic narrative. "What the hell kind of escape is this?" Goldwyn hated The Great Escape, "Nobody gets away!" Louis B. Mayer refused to make it owing to the conspicuous absence of women. Oscar winning epics, like "Stalag 17" (1953) and "The Bridge on the River Kwai" (1957) had not altered the attitudes of studio executives about tragic endings. Meanwhile, John Sturges soldiered on and made westerns, crime films, and soap operas for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Paramount Pictures until the early 1960s. Competition with television as well as the 1948 Supreme Court mandate that studios liquidate their theater chains because the moguls had been operating in restraint of trade, contributed to the erosion of traditional studio system. Independent producers came into their own and wielded greater clout for getting offbeat films made.
Producers Harold, Marvin, and Walter Mirish had been toiling assiduously at Allied Artists to produce A-quality pictures, but their efforts had borne little fruit. At the time, United Artists changed the way Hollywood conducted business. Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Charles Chaplin, and D.W. Griffith had formed the studio in the 1919. United Artists owned no studio back lots. Instead, the company distributed films. Since United Artists had no product to distribute in the early 1950s, the studio had been losing money on its global distribution network. Pickford and Chaplin agreed to let a firm of entertainment attorneys run the company. Meanwhile, the Mirish Brothers had been courting prominent directors who wanted to make pictures of their own choosing. The Mirish Brothers approached United Artists executives and engineered an independent deal to provide UA with a slate of films that they would produce, but the studio would bankroll. Mirish co-produced "The Magnificent Seven" (1960) with director John Sturges, and the incredible overseas success of the film enabled Sturges to convince Mirish to purchase the rights to Brickhill's novel and produce the film.
"The Great Escape" marked the zenith of John Sturges' career as a director and made an international star out of Steve McQueen. McQueen's motorcycle stunts make the last half-hour of the movie. No, he didn't make the big jump. "The Great Escape" bristles with action, excitement, humor, tension, patriotism, suspense, and tragedy. Most of the action is based on fact, but Sturges had to take some liberties. McQueen's motorcycle scenes were added as well the Americans. The Germans had moved the Americans out of the camp by the time of the escape.Elmer Bernstein's awesome music underlines every key moment in this epic length story.
Ironically, despite its military narrative, "The Great Escape" emerged as the most anti-authoritative big studio film of the day, foreshadowing movies such as Cool Hand Luke (1967), The Dirty Dozen (1967), and Easy Rider (1969). Walter Mirish remembered The Great Escape as one of his favorites. He applauded the message of the film. No matter how impossible the odds, defiant men proved with their wits and will that nothing can stop them from accomplishing a goal. The engineering feats in constructing tunnels, effecting escapes, and tying up German soldiers made "The Great Escape" the apex of World War II POW movies. Furthermore, "The Great Escape" condemned the barbarism of the Gestapo for murdering the fifty POW escapees and hammered home the necessity for destroying the Third Reich.