The Great Escape (1963)

 This film is like the TV show Hogan's Heroes except this actually happened.

Summary

-Allied prisoners in a German POW camp make plans to escape to freedom

Cast

-Steve McQueen: Virgil Hilts "The Cooler King"

-James Garner: Hendley "The Scrounger"

-Richard Attenborough: Roger Bartlett "Big X"

-James Donald: Ramsey "SBO"

-Charles Bronson: Danny "The Tunnel King"

-Donald Pleasence: "Blythe the Forger"

-James Coburn: Sedgwick "Manufacturer"

-Hannes Messemer: Col. Von Luger "Kommandant"

-David McCallum: Ashley-Pitt "Dispersal"

-Gordon Jackson: MacDonald "Intelligence"

-John Leyton: Willie "The Tunnel King"

-Angus Lennie: Ives "The Mole"

-Nigel Stock: Cavendish "The Surveyor"

-Robert Graf: Werner "The Ferret"

-Jud Taylor: Goff

-Hans Reiser: Herr Kuhn

-Lawrence Montaigne: Haynes "Diversions"

-Robert Desmond: Griffith "Tailor"

Did You Know?

-In real life, James Hill, the person Donald Pleasence's character Blythe was based on, was a forger. But in real life, Hill didn't go blind and was not shot dead

-The German officer who arrested Von Luger is the same officer who captured RAF pilot Bartlett and turned him over to the Gestapo. The actor who played the German officer also played another German officer in the WWII film Kelly's Heroes

-The real escape occurred at a German POW camp called Stalag Luft III, specifically the north part of the compound. It opened in March 1943. The prisoners in this camp were taken from all over, including other camps. The escape happened on March 24-25, 1944 and April 12, 1944 saw the last executions.

-Out of the 23 POWs who were recaptured and thus spared from death, seventeen of them were returned to camp, four were sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and two were sent to Colditz Castle

-For escaping prisoners, there is a superstition stating that if one says "good luck", the mission will fail. It's these words that a German officer utters to Bartlett and MacDonald that get them recaptured. Macdonald broke the rule of never speaking English when he said "Thank you", then realizes the error

-A note at the start of the film mentions that the individual incidents in this film are mostly true, but have been rearranged to the people involved and the timing. One example includes the 76 who escaped, three got away successfully and fifty were murdered as a way of sending a message. But the murders occurred in small groups, not in a large group. At least 14 German officers were executed for their part in these murders

-When the recaptured POWs were shot, Hermann Goring, among other top Nazi leaders, were charged with the murders at the Nuremburg trials

-Roger Bartlett was modelled heavily after Roger Bushell, a British officer involved in the escapes. Like Bartlett, Bushell was executed. The scarring around actor Richard Attenborough's eye is a tribute to Bushell, who had gotten the scar from a competitive skiing accident

-During the motorcycle chase scene, director John Sturges gave permission to Steve McQueen to ride the motorcycle in the disguise of a German Army officer. Through editing, McQueen is chasing himself and he's the one who hits the trip wire

-When Ashley-Pitt, played by actor David McCallum arrives at the meeting between Big X and MacDonald, Big X (Richard Attenborough) makes a comment stating "Didn't they teach you promptness in the IRA?" This suggests that the character had served in the Irish Republican Army. In the real escape, there was an Irishman named Nicolas Tindal and Roger "Big X" was suspicious of his Irish heritage. But he proved his loyalty. Ireland was able to remain neutral during WWII

-In this film and another war film, The Password is Courage, both escape tunnels come up short of the tree line

-Nigel Stock, who plays Cavendish the Surveyor, also plays the role of a surveyor named Cole in The Password is Courage

-Several members of the cast and crew were actual members of the military and even POWs themselves. Director/producer John Sturges and composer Elmer Bernstein served in the US Army Air Forces.

• Author of the book the movie is based on, Paul Brickhill, was a fighter pilot for the Royal Australian Air Force. He was shot down over Tunisia. He was sent to a German POW camp called Stalag Luft III, where he helped organize the escape. He did not participate due to his claustrophobia.
• Screenwriter James Clavell was a captain in the British Army's Royal Artillery and spent three years in a Japanese POW camp on the island of Java.
• Wally Floody, one of the technical advisors, was a fighter pilot for the Royal Canadian Air Force, flying Spitfires for the 401 Squadron. He was also shot down and imprisoned at Stalag Luft III. With his experience as a mining engineer, he designed and built three tunnels named "Harry" "Dick" "Tom", earning him the nickname "The Tunnel King".
• Executive producer Walter Mirisch tried to enlist in the Navy, but was rejected due to a heart murmur. But he moved to California and worked in a factory making bomber planes, so he was still able to do his part for the war.
• Steve McQueen served in the US Merchant Marines near the end of WWII and later served in the Marine Corps, where he saved the lives of five other marines during an Arctic exercise. He saved them by pulling them out of the tank before it broke through the ice.
• Charles Bronson served in the US Army Air Forces. He flew 25 missions as an aerial gunner in a B-29 Superfortress and also received a Purple Heart for wounds sustained in battle.
• James Garner enlisted in the Merchant Marines, but later enlisted in the California National Guard and saw combat as a rifleman in Korea.
• Richard Attenborough and Donald Pleasence served in the RAF (Royal Air Force). Attenborough served on the RAF Film Production Unit, who filmed the results of RAF bomber command missions from the rear gunner's seat. Pleasance, however, was part of the crew for an Avro Lancaster NE112. It was shot down over Agenville, France. He was captured and imprisoned at Stalag Luft I.
• James Donald and Nigel Stock served in the British Army. Donald worked in the Royal Army Service Corp before being assigned to Intelligence, where he typed decoded messages. Stock was in the London Irish Rifles and Assam Regiment, which was an infantry regiment of the Indian Army.
• Several actors also served in the unified armed forces of Nazi-era Germany during WWII. Til Kiwe was a German paratrooper in the German Afrika Korps, but was captured and sent to a POW camp in Colorado. He made several escape attempts.
• Robert Graf was conscripted into the Wehrmacht and sent to the Eastern front. Wounded in 1944, he was reassigned to war production in Munich.
• Heinz Weiss and Hannes Messemer served in the German Army.
• Some of the younger cast members also served in the military. James Coburn was in the Army and served in Korea
• Lawrence Montaigne served in the Marine Corps
• William Russell served in the Royal Air Force while David McCallum, Angus Lennie, Tom Adams, John Leyton and Arthur Atkinson were soldiers in the British Army. Atkinson also served in the French Foreign and fought in Angola

-In one scene, James Garner can be seen befriending a German soldier. This would be repeated on the TV show Hogan's Heroes where Sgt. Andrew Carter tells Sgt. Schultz he's looking for a pet mouse

-As Henley and Blythe are flying in the stolen Nazi airplane towards Switzerland, in the background the towers of the famed Neuschwanstein Castle can be seen. It was built by King Ludwig of Bavaria as a retreat. After he died in 1886, it was opened as a tourist destination. It can be seen in other films, such as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and is also the inspiration for Cinderella's Castle at DisneyWorld in Orlando, Florida.

-Robert Graf, who played Werner, was one of the first cast members to die. He was diagnosed with cancer and passed away at age 42 in February 1966, less than three years after the film came out. It is ironic that one of his lines in the movie revolves around him telling Hendley that he is "not a well man".

-A historical error occurred with the trains. The logo for the trains was of the Deutsche Bundesbahn, the railway of the Federal Republic of Germany. During Nazi-era Germany, it would have been Deutsche Reichsbahn

-Four actors from this movie died in 2014: Angus Lennie, Richard Attenborough, Tom Adams, James Garner

-During filming and production, it was raining heavily. Locals described it as the worst weather seen in 38 years

-The official report about the escape stated 76 prisoners got out. The film only shows three successfully escaping: Sedgwick, Danny, Willie

-In the scenes after Hilts stealing a motorcycle, he is stopped by a German officer, who asks in German "Where are you going?" Since Hilts doesn't speak German, he kicks the officer and rides off

-During the scene where Henley is saying goodbye to Ashley-Pitts on the train, he says "Tally ho". This is a phrase used by RAF pilots when they spotted Germans. Henley was giving him a warning

-The character played by Donald Pleasence was partially based on London-born John Cordwell. He was a Chicago architect and owner of the Red Lion Pub on North Lincoln Ave. He died in 1999 and his stories are told from different points of view on a documentary called Tales from the Red Lion. 

-Ramsey went by his title of SBO, which means Senior British Officer

-James Coburn's Australian accent was all but non-existent. Filmmakers used other items to emphasize the fact he was Australian. One example includes his entering the workshop. Roger's exasperated with Sedgwick and says "Bluey, where the hell is the air pump?" "Bluey" is a kindly nickname for someone with red hair. Since the term is not widely known with a lot of audiences, the credit of "Louis" appears for Sedgwick

-The escape plan was highly secretive. It was so secretive that the POWs referred to them by code names and Roger Bushell threatened to court marshal anyone who said "tunnel" out loud

-There are six languages either spoken or sung in the film. In the scene where Flight Lieutentant Blythe is teaching the POWs about birds, the species of bird he is teaching them about is the Masked Shrike or Butcher Bird, which is known as "Lanicus Nubicus". A lot Scots dialect is being sung by Ives and MacDonald, who were singing "Wha Hae the 42nd" in the Fourth of July scene just before "Tom" is discovered

-The character Von Luger was based off Friedrich von Lindeiner-Wildau. Similar to von Luger, the real commandant was an Oberst (Colonel), a general staff officer and winner of the "Blue Max" medal. However, there are pictures on the wall of his office showing WWI planes. Von Lindeiner-Wildau earned his Blue Max medals in the East Africa campaigns from 1905-1907 and served as an infantry officer before and during WWI. He retired from the Army in 1919 and only joined the Luftwaffe in 1937 as an invitation from Hermann Goering

-Danny "The Tunnel King" is seen suffering from claustrophobia, only made worse when the tunnel lights go out during the air raid. Paul Brickhill, who wrote the book the movie is based on, was also claustrophobic. He was originally given an early spot in the escape line, but backed out when his condition became known and he started having a panic attack. He was dropped to the bottom of the list and he credits this for saving his life

-The last surviving escapee from the real escape, Dick Churchill, died in 2019 at the age of 99

-The motorcycle that Hilts rides is a radically changed Triumph TR6 Trophy. Bud Ekins, who performed some of the stunts, was a Triumph dealer. This was Steve McQueen's favorite motorcycle brand. The motorcycle with sidecar attached that crashes into the ditch was also a Triumph. These British-made motorcycles were not around in WWII and their appearance is a history error. Especially considering if the Nazis used them, the motorcycles would have been German-made, such as BMW motorcycles because the Nazis had preferred using German-made products

-The Germans confined any enemy pilots in the Luftwaffe prisons, no matter the military they serve. This explains Ashley-Pitt, a Royal Navy pilot in Luft Stalag III

-The nationalities of some of the POWs were changed to emphasize Americans and de-emphasize Commonwealth (Britain) and other Allied military

-Group Captain Ramsey is based on actual Senior British Officer Herbert Massey. Massey was injured when he was shot down and walked with an obvious limp which kept him from partaking in the escape attempt. James McDonald, who plays Ramsey, walks with a walking stick and a limp as a tribute to Massey

-The gold medallion around Steve McQueen's neck was a gift from his wife

-Most of the planes on the airfield that Henley and Blythe go to are American AT-6 Texan trainers painted with a German design. The one they fly, however, is an actual German-made plane, a Bucker Bu 181 "Bestmann"

-The three POWs who successfully escape were Norwegians Per Bergsland and Jens Muller (who escaped to Sweden by taking a train from Sagan to Stettin via Berlin) and Dutchman Bram van der Stok (who travelled across Europe to Spain)

-The scene where the POWs are brewing vodka and the Americans celebrate Independence Day is thought to be based on the British creating an alcohol distillery for Christmas Day celebrations in 1943. Capt. Guy Griffiths was a Royal Marine pilot in Luft Stalag III who produced forged documents for the escape. He also produced a comical illustration of the scene that survived to this day. The illustration shows the basis of a Special Exhibition on "Griff" at the Royal Marines Museum in Southsea, England from Easter 2010

-The uniforms of the guards at the camp are a mix of Luftwaffe branches. The officers and half of the guards are wearing gold yellow collar patches, marking them as air crew, which includes ground personnel and pilots. Strachwitz, the senior NCO, and other enlisted crew, wear red collar patches, marking them as anti-artillery crew

-The German cast members were cast out of Munich and they had their own experiences with war. Hannes Messemer was captured on the Eastern Front by the Soviet Army, escaped and walked hundreds of miles to the German border. Til Kiwe served time in an American prison camp in Arizona and tried to escape 17 times

-In the scene where Hilts is getting as much wood as possible for the tunnels, he takes the wood boards from under the beds. When Cavendish gets in bed, not realizing too many boards are missing and crashes through the bunks, this is reminiscent of a real event that took place at Luft Stalag III. Trying to scrounge as much wood as possible, Roger Bushell, who Richard Attenborough's character Roger Bartlett is based on, set an example for his bunkmates. He donated boards from his bunk and used a string system to keep the mattresses in place. But when he lay down on them, Roger came crashing through the bunk on top of his bunkmate because the strings gave way

-The medal the Colonel von Luger is wearing around his neck is the Blue Max medal or the Pour le Merite. This was a Prussian military award from WWI and given automatically to pilots who shot down eight planes, but later sixteen. The Nazis replaced it with the Knight's Cross, but it could still be worn by those who had received the award before the takeover of the Third Reich

-Danny says that all he could say in Russian was "I love you". Charles Bronson was highly fluent in Russian and spoke it as his first language since childhood

-Donald Pleasence, who played Blythe the Forger, was an actual military member during WWII. He was an aircrewman in the Royal Air Force whose plane was shot down. He was captured and tortured by the Nazis. He kindly offered advice to director John Sturges, but was told, politely, to keep his "opinions" to himself. Later on, another actor told him that Pleasence had actually served in the military during WWII and was imprisoned in an actual German POW camp. From then on, Sturges asked Pleasance for technical advice and input on how to make everything historically accurate

-Jud Taylor, who played Goff, mentioned that the camp looked so authentic that from outside, you would have thought it was a real German POW camp. One day, he approached a man walking his dog who looked very disturbed and distressed. When asked what was wrong, the man told him he thought that was a real camp again. Taylor told him a movie was being filmed here and that the German POW camp he saw was not real, just a set. The man was greatly relieved to know that

-Charles Bronson, who was the chief tunneller, had brought his own experience and expertise to the set. He worked as a coal miner before turning to acting. He gave director John Sturges advice on how to move the dirt. As a result from working as a coal miner, he developed claustrophobia, just as his character had

-Several of the cast members were actual POWs during WWII. Donald Pleasance (Blythe the Forger) was a POW in the German Luft Stalag I. Hannes Messemer (von Luger) was in a Russian camp. Til Kiwe (Frick) and Hans Reiser (Herr Kuhn) were in an American camp. Pleasance described the set as a very historically accurate representation of a German camp

Donald Pleasence

Hannes Messemer

Hans Reiser

Til Kiwe