Taut POW Escape Story.

Rating: 6/10 (28 May 2010)

This long movie is organized along the same lines as "The Dirty Dozen." The first two thirds of the running time introduce us to the characters and their organization around a common goal. In "The Dirty Dozen" it was a suicide mission for condemned prisoners. Here it's escape from a prison camp for Allied airmen in Bavaria. The last third deals with the execution of the plan.
It's well written and there are some understated comic touches interspersed with the suspenseful tale of the digging of the escape tunnel, the preparation of fake papers, the manufacture of civilian clothing from scraps and rags and blankets.
The implementation of the plan, the last third, turns serious. Of the 250 men designated as escapees, only 70 get out and most of those are either captured and returned or killed outright by the Gestapo.
Actually, this is a pretty nice camp compared to, say, that in "Stalag 17." It's situated among the rolling green hills and evergreen woods and distant mountains, rather like a picture postcard or a fairy tale or a particularly ornate cuckoo clock. The camp is strictly for hardcore escapees and is run by the Luftwaffe in a determined but not entirely unfriendly manner. The barracks themselves are spacious and reasonably comfortable. At the end, Steve McQueen is returned to the camp just as the sympathetic Luftwaffe officer is being relieved of command and taken away by the Gestapo to God knows where. "Well," the officer remarks to McQueen, "It looks like you will see Berlin before I do." I thought it was ungracious of McQueen to smirk.
The other Germans we see, outside the camp, are stereotypical bastards. The fifty men who are to be executed are brought together by the Gestapo, whose commanding officer tells Richard Attenborough, "You vill be sorry dzhat you put us to zo motch twubble." It's an enjoyable flick, filled with diverse pleasures and some tragic moments. It seems to have acquired a following whose devotion to the movie borders on cultism. I'm not sure why. The performances are all decent but it's a formulaic movie and the roles don't give anyone much of a chance to stretch his acting chops. Steve McQueen is not the epitome of cool that he was to become in a few years. John Sturges' direction is functional, effective, commercial, and exciting, as it was in many of his other action films.
Nicely done.