What a great movie

Rating: 10/10 (29 October 2001)

I checked this out from the library video stacks. It had Steve McQueen in it, so I figured what the heck? To my surprise this is a great movie. What a cast! Richard Attenborough, Donald Pleasence, Steve McQueen,James Coburn,James Garner, Charles Brosan and David Mccallum. Most of these guys before they got famous as well. One could spent hours creating spy and western connections between the cast. The movie builds up suspense well. You really want them to escape from that camp. Unlike most war movies, this movie actually injects some humor into it.(the moonshine scene a good example)The European scenery is beautiful. It's quite heart wrenching with the escapees get killed or sent back to camp. I'm really glad Hollywood didn't sugar coat it with a happy ending. It would have destroyed the drama. But there's two things that bother me about this movie.
1. James Coburn's aussie accent. Auuggghhhh!
2. They make the POW camp seem almost like summer camp.They even study birds for pete's sake. At girl scout camp we had cabins that looked almost identical to the ones in the film. In fact some of the camps I went to looked amazingly like the POW camp in this movie. Hmmmmm I wonder. Anyway they make it seem like a POW camp isn't really that horrible a place to be.
Overall a few flaws, but a movie that is deserving of 'classic' status.