The Great Escape
What is McQueen's most famous movie? Probably a toss-up between Bullitt and The Great Escape, which I watched again yesterday for the umpteenth time. He is top-billed in the film, but is part of a large group of stars, and though it is an ensemble film he manages to be at the heart of it, especially since they somehow manage to get him on a motorcycle, his trademark.
The Great Escape is a true World War II story, and is honest enough to admit right at the opening that certain characters are composites, but the details of the escape are true. At the time, there were English and American officers who were constantly escaping. They never fully got away, but the bother to the Germans was enough that it made them use men that could otherwise be doing the fighting. So they put all "the rotten eggs" in one basket, in a new, high-security camp. That sounds like good strategy, until one realizes that they put the best escape artists on the Allies together--what did they expect they would do? Try to get 250 out in one escape.
There is some humor as on the very first day of their interment men try to escape, whether it be posing as Russian workers or hiding in cut-down tree limbs. McQueen, as Hilts, immediately looks for blind spots between guard towers. He thinks he finds one, using his baseball to test it. He's caught, of course, and a flippant attitude earns him 20 days in the cooler, where he spends the time throwing the ball against the wall, and plotting his next escape attempt.
Later Richard Attenborough, as "Big X," arrives, after a going-over by the Gestapo. He's a genius at devising escapes, and immediately has men digging three tunnels, called Tom, Dick, and Harry. James Garner is on hand as "The Scrounger," somehow getting his hands on whatever is needed. David McCallum is "Dispersal," who comes up with a plan to get rid of the dirt from the tunnel, while others, such as James Coburn, Charles Bronson, and Donald Pleasance, all have their various jobs.
Finally, they make a break for it, and find that the tunnel is twenty feet short of the woods. They manage to get 76 out for being discovered, and the last hour of the film is the attempt of those to make it to freedom. Only three escape, and fifty are executed by the Germans. The most memorable scene is surely McQueen's attempt to get into Switzerland by motorcycle. If only he would have spoke some German he would have made it.
The Great Escape is one of the those grand epics that they don't make anymore. It used to be a a staple on the 4:30 movie back where I come from, spread out over a whole week, as it is a three-hour film (that rushes by). I was interested to see that it was shot in Germany, and only 18 years after the end of the war--no hard feelings, I guess. I should add that Germans are not made to look foolish, and the commandant, played by Hannes Messemer, is made a three-dimensional character. A key moment in the film is when he is lax in returning a "Heil, Hitler."
There are a lot of great scenes in the film, and it is further enhanced by the score by Elmer Bernstein's, one of the best in film history. The theme is one of those tunes you have a hard time getting out of your head, but while it's there it's quite pleasurable. It's a bit like the "Colonel Bogey March" from The Bridge on the River Kwai"--an upbeat march that is easy to whistle while undergoing some chore. But what's important about the tune is that is upbeat, and positive. These men all believed they could escape from any prison camp, and would not be stopped.
Four of the actors of the film died in 2014. McCallum and John Leyton (as Willie "Tunnel King") are the only two principal actors still alive.
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