Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: The Great Escape (1963) - Sturges' further manly exploits in war-adventure classic

5/26/2020

The Great Escape (1963) - Sturges' further manly exploits in war-adventure classic

♥♥♥♥

An elaborate, dramatically drawn and painted poster for John Sturges' The Great Escape, which effectively screws up expectations

The [in fact far from] true story of the ambitious escape mission from German POW camp Stalag Luft III during WWII by mainly English and American officers.

The Great Escape is written by W.R. Burnett (Sergeants 3 (1962)) and James Clavell (Five Gates to Hell (1959)), adapting the same-titled 1950 book by a survivor of the camp, Paul Brickhill (The Dam Busters (1951)), and directed by John Sturges (The Man Who Dared (1946)).
Compared to some of the other great prison escape films, I don't count The Great Escape among the most suspenseful, and the filmmakers' multi-character approach carries a large part of the guilt for this. Even so this popular classic is ripe with beautiful images, (cinematography by Daniel L. Fapp (A New Kind of Love (1963))) and in the very manly cast especially Richard Attenborough (Secret Flight (1946)) is in top shape in it.

Related posts:

John Sturges: The Eagle Has Landed (1976) - Sturges' enjoyable, last man's adventure
Chino/Valdez, Il Mezzosangue/Valdez the Half BreedThe Valdez Horses (1973) - Bronson is his own man only in Sturges' good spaghetti western

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 3.8-4 mil. $ (different accounts)
Box office: In excess of 11.9 mil. $
= Uncertain - but at least a box office success and more likely a big hit (returned at least 2.92 times its cost in North America alone)
[The Great Escape premiered 20 June (London) and runs 172 minutes. Brickhill played a minor part in the escape mission in the Stalag Luft III camp but lived to tell the story: 50 allied airmen were executed as punishment for the escape, which only succeeded in getting 3 free; two Norwegians and one Dutch. The book had first been adapted for TV in 1951. Many in the star-studded cast had served in the war, including Attenborough, Charles Bronson and Donald Pleasance (who actually spent a year captured in the German Stalag Luft I POW camp); James Garner (The Pink Jungle (1968)) served in the Korean War. Shooting took place from June - October 1962 in Germany. Steve McQueen (The Reivers (1969)) did his own driving in the film's famous climactic motorcycle chase, except for the jump stunt, which was performed by stuntman Bud Ekins. The film changes the actual history on several fronts, making composite characters of altered nationalities and changing many facts surrounding the escape. It was the year's 10th highest rental grossing title in North America and likely similarly popular internationally, although gross numbers are regrettably not reported online. It was nominated for an Oscar: Best Editing, lost to How the West Was Won. It was also nominated for a Golden Globe and won a National Board of Review award, among other honors. It has been re-released many times, recently a 2019 re-release in the UK grossed the film another 227k $. An unofficial TV movie sequel was made; The Great Escape II: The Untold Story (1988). IMDb's users have voted the film in at #137 on the site's Top 250, sitting between Howl's Moving Castle (2004) and All about Eve (1950). Sturges returned with The Satan Bug (1965). McQueen returned in Soldier in the Rain (1963)); Garner in The Thrill of It All (1963)); and Attenborough in The Third Secret (1964). The Great Escape is certified fresh at 94 % with an 8.27/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Great Escape?

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

James Caan has died

Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

Born in Vaucluse, France, Trintignant's theatrical debut as an actor was in If All the Guys in the World... (1955). Later credits include ...And God Created Woman (1956), The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), Inferno (1964), A Man and A Woman (1966), My Love, My Love (1967), A Man to Kill (1967), The Great Silence (1968), Z (1969), The Assassination (1972), Three Colors: Red (1994), Amour (2012), Happy End (2017) and many more. He also wrote and directed two films in the 1970s. Trintignant passed away at age 91. R.I.P.

Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

Born in Ohio, Hall didn't start acting until he was 30. His long list of credits include Zabriskie Point (1970), Miami Vice (1987, TV-series), Midnight Run (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Cheers (1993, TV-series), Hard Eight (1996), The Rock (1996), Air Force One (1997), Boogie Nights (1997), Seinfeld (1991-98), Rush Hour (1998), The Insider (1999), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Dogville (2003), The Zodiac (2005), Zodiac (2007), Curb Your Enthusiasm (2004-09), Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011), Modern Family (2011-12) and many more. Hall passed away at age 90. R.I.P.

Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

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5/26/2020

The Great Escape (1963) - Sturges' further manly exploits in war-adventure classic

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