Heroes underground.

Rating: 10/10 (24 April 2005)

I imagine it was the lengthy running time that kept me for so many years from seeing The Great Escape, although that doesn't explain why I haven't seen hordes of other movies. But I've been going back and watching all the old classics and The Great Escape is one of the best ones I've seen so far. The movie is not only wildly entertaining throughout it's nearly three hour duration, but shows some actors who went on to become famous for other roles in decades and generations to come. Granted, I am speaking from the perspective of a different generation of moviegoers, which is why I know Charles Bronson more from Death Wish than this film, or James Coburn from films like Payback and Affliction, Donald Pleasance as Dr. Sam Loomis and Richard Attenborough as John Hammond from the Jurassic Park films.
I think the thing I loved the most about the movie was how open everyone was about their plans to escape. Not that they tried to escape out in the open, but they made no effort to hide the fact that they were analyzing their surroundings, trying to find a way to get out. As we soon learn, it is their sworn duty as captured officers to consistently try to escape and, failing that, to make life as confusing and frustrating as humanly possible for their captors.
The story involves a lot of British officers being held captive by the Germans, at a prison where all of the most consistent escapers have been compiled for special supervision. When the prisoners arrive at the beginning of the movie, many of them, including Virgil Hilts (Steve McQueen) walk into the gates and then immediately walk to the fences around the outsides of the compound, looking up and down the length of the fences, studying where the guard towers are, looking in broad daylight for ways to escape.
What follows is a brilliant competition between the proud British officers being held captive and the Germans guarding them, as the British make every attempt to escape and receive minimal punishment when they're caught. 20 days in the cooler for a failed escape attempt (doubled from only 10 for mouthing off) is pretty light compared to what I would have expected POWs to have suffered at the hands of the Nazis in World War II.
Because the escapes are only hidden during their preparations, there are portions of The Great Escape that play almost like a sports movie more than a war film, because of the atmosphere of competition and, among other things, there is so much comic relief, One of my favorite scenes is the one where they first begin digging under the floor in their bunker. Danny Velinski (Bronson) is under the floor digging away when the Germans march in for a surprise inspection, and he jumps out, they put the cover back on the hole and smear clay around it and then pour water into it, one guy starts mopping the floor, everyone else goes back to playing cards or milling about, and Velinski hops in the shower, and the suspicious officers come in and demand to know what they're each doing. The guy mopping explains that he's mopping, Velinski says he needed a wash, and Louis Sedgwick (Coburn), says about Velinski, "I'm watching him. I'm a lifeguard!"
It's also a great scene when Hilts (McQueen) tells Bartlett (Attenborough) and the other officer his plan for escape. Steve McQueen is the star of the movie but spends most of it pretty much out of the loop. He was in the cooler when the plans for the great escape were first hatched, so when he finally got out most of the camp was involved in planning this epic breakout, and Hilts comes up to Bartlett and one other officer and gleefully tells them about his and Ives' nutty plan to burrow three feet down and dig straight out, sticking metal tubes through the ground to the surface so they can breathe. Bartlett and the other officer leave both of them out of the plans for the time being, for reasons that are explained later in the film.
The movie is expertly written, with outstanding dialogue and even better performances and direction that I like to think is still inspiring filmmakers throughout the world. I learned from another reviewer on the IMDb that the music is almost competing within itself, with different instruments representing the British and the Germans, so I was watching for it when I watched the movie. Not only is the different music representative of the two opposing sides, but it does it within scenes and even within individual shots. Consider, for example, the scene where Hilts and Ives are first brought into the cooler. The music is almost reacting to what is going on on screen, like it's trying to describe where each character is within the frame. That is true film-making brilliance.
The movie ends with a massive setback, a tremendous downturn in tone, but does so without turning into a tragedy or overshadowing everything else that has gone on before that and, most importantly, while remaining true to the real life story. It displays the pride and determination of British military as well as was done in The Bridge on the River Kwai, and that is a major accomplishment.
Bravo.