IMDb #118 Review: The Great Escape (1963)

Source: Wikipedia

A bunch of guys dig out of a German POW camp, or they do what they can before the Angel of Murphy strikes and the whole operation goes FUBAR. Movie notwithstanding, I fail to see what's so great about it.

Probably the cast. An impressive array of strong-jawed leading men who are wrinkly or dust by now. Or the criminally catchy theme tune which elevated these dusty supermen to celluloid immortality.

A parallel to the casting calls, all of the English-speaking escape experts are packed into one camp. Which is as "inescapable" as those in the other movies of its ilk. Germany is asking for trouble here. "All the rotten eggs in one basket" doesn't make for clever war strategy, unless you mean the second-worst Easter surprise ever.

Unlike the outside world, everybody inside has a job. Diggers, forgers, carpenters, structural engineers, tailors, moonshiners, and ... gardeners? Christmas carolers? For cover, obviously. Good thing the story skips the majority of the mind-crushing monotony, such as the countless hours Steve McQueen spends in solitary confinement not growing facial hair.

The plan? Liberate 250 men. The reality? Well, for a visual demonstration, toss a dirt clod into an oscillating fan. The few survivors scatter across occupied territory (and what lovely occupied territory -- you almost forget it's ruled by Nazis, or worse, the French).

They borrow or hijack bikes, boats, trains, planes. The French Resistance attempts to assist any who catch on to their act. But English idiomatic politeness threatens to undo them all. Rather anticlimactic.

The title didn't lie. The escape plan was pretty great. The greatest part of the execution is that anything worked out at all. (And the execution of the recaptured escapees, now, that's why they left in the first place.)