The Great Escape (1963)

There are so many great war movies that Hollywood has made for so many years: Saving Private Ryan, Patton, Pearl Harbor, Hamburger Hill, Black Hawk Down, Full Metal Jacket, and Apocalypse Now. But there’s one war movie I really like, and that movie is John Sturges’ 1963 WWII film THE GREAT ESCAPE. Based on the book by former real life POW officer Paul Brickhill, The Great Escape tells the story of a group of allied escape artist type prisoner of war (POWs) officers (and what a great cast too): Capt. Virgil Hilts “The Cooler King” (Steve McQueen), Flight Lt. Bob Hendley “The Scrounger” (James Garner), Squadron Leader Roger Bartlett “Big X” (Richard Attenborough), Flight Lt. Danny Velsinski “The Tunnel King” (Charles Bronson), Flight Lt. Colin Blythe “The Forger” (Donald Pleasence), and Flying Officer Louis Sedgwick “The Manufacturer” (James Coburn) who put together a daring escape from Stalag Luft III, a German prisoner of war camp during World War II. I’ve been watching this movie since I was twelve years old, It is one the greatest movies I have ever seen, and it’s one of my all time favorites. The music that legendary composer Elmer Bernstein made for this film is fantastic. I love how the movie starts when you see the trucks driving to the camp and how it ends when you see who played who in the film. I would have to imagine the German guard, who locks up Hilts in The Cooler, smiling when he hears the familiar sound of Hilts bouncing his baseball on the wall. I think he likes that. There’s one character from the Gestapo and SS agents who bring Big X to the camp I didn’t like, and that is Preissen (played by German actor Ulrich Beiger). The way he closes his briefcase makes me want to see him killed. Anyway, my favorite scene out of the whole movie is of course is seeing Steve McQueen being pursued by German Soldiers in the famous motorcycle chase. THE GREAT ESCAPE is an unforgettable classic that all movie lovers should see and love.