Great Escape People Are Enthralled

Great Escape

People are enthralled and amazed by the escape artist. Besides the stories of Harry Houdini, other tales that fascinate the audience are the escape attempts from World War 2 prisoner of war camps. The Great Escape fits in this film genre.

The Great Escape is an American film made in 1963 about a mass escape by Allied prisoners of war from a maximum security German POW camp during World War II. The film stars Steve McQueen, Richard Attenborough and James Garner. The movie is based upon the book by Paul Brickhill which is a non-fiction account of the escape from Stalag Luft North III in Sagan (now "aga," Poland), in Lower Silesia province of Nazi Germany. Some of the characters of the book and the movie are composites of real men in the POW camp. The movie was made by the Mirisch Company, produced and directed by John Sturges and released by United Artists, the Great Escape is a masterful collaboration between Sturges, composer Elmer Bernstein and screenwriters James Clavell and W.R. Burnett ("Allmovie.com").

Ironically, the reason for the escape is the Nazis exasperation at the number of those escapes from their prison camps by a small number of Allied prisoners and then relocates them to a high-security camp that is supposedly escape proof to sit out the rest of the war. Unphased, the Allied prisoners plan the most ambitious POW escape attempts of all of World War II in 1943. Reviewers have justifiably called the film one of the most suspenseful and ingenious adventure films of all time (ibid.).

The commandant of the new camp was Luftwaffe Colonel von Luger who tells the senior British officer, Group Capt. Ramsey that "There will be no escapes from this camp." Ramsey answers that it is the POWs duty to attempt to escape. After several failed escape attempts on the very first day, the POWs settle into the prison camp. After this, these professional escape artists begin planning the big event, the escape after which the film is named. The teams are organized to build the tunnels, forge documents, make civilian clothing, acquire contraband goods and prevent the guards from discovering the work of the escape. The POWs commence and continue work on three tunnels simultaneously. On the night of the escape, seventy-six prisoners get out of the camp. Most are killed (fifty were murdered outright by the Gestapo) or captured with only a handful making it out to freedom. Only three make it to safety in Sweden and Spain ("Allmovie.com").