Steve McQueen is an icon and he always features prominently on the posters for this movie. Although he’s in this movie he actually does not appear in a lot of scenes. It’s the other actors that show what they got and they definitely impress.
The Great Escape is een movie that’s based on an actual, big scale escape attempt from a second world war nazi camp. A number of British and American members of the airforce have been captured and are held in the camp. These prisoners do try everything to make life a living hell for the captors by constantly attempting to escape. They do this by digging tunnels or wearing a disguise. These are just small attempts that are not on the scale of the great escape as for this escape they plan to do it with a couple of hundred men at the same time.
The movie really shows what kind of planning and organisation is necessary to prepare such an escape. Clothes have to be made to make sure nobody stands out once they escape, digging tunnels, strengthening them and trying to hide all the sand requires a lot of daily routine. It’s an impressive story when you know this actually took place. The movie was shot in Germany.
Interesting fact is that Charles Bronson was a miner before he started acting. In the movie he plays a man who is claustrophobic because of working in the mines. Bronson actually suffered from the same thing, so some scenes must have been hard for him.
The preparations for the escape are shown in much detail. During these preparation you can feel the tension of trying not be discovered. I was already on the edge of my seat before they executed their plan, so went they went ahead with it I figuratively fell off it. It’s an excellent movie that really deserves its place in the IMDB top 250.
Score: 9