Very Overrated

Rating: Null/10 (14 August 2009)

I saw this in 1963 and I thought it was too long and very dull. I saw it again on TCM and it was about the same. The bald guy is great, and Ives is pretty cool, but Steve McQueen was badly cast as the rebel of a Yank in the middle of the Brit prisoners plotting a great escape.
The motorcycle scenes were lame.
They should have made a movie about the great escape from Libby Prison during the Civil War. That's a better story. My ancestor Tom Lashua was one of the escapees!
The book The Great Escape was better than the movie. The movie took some major liberties with the true facts.
The German commandant was a real marshmallow in this movie. I didn't get that part. Has there ever been anyone in a movie as naive as the nice-guy German guard that 'lost' his wallet to James Garner?
"Yo aaams ....up!"
The theme song is truly bad and they play it over and over for three hours. I made my great escape when I shut off the TV with 20 minutes left to go.