Quentin Tarantino is rarely at a loss for film recommendations, in any genre. But only a few have been declared favorites — like 1963’s The Great Escape, which, in a 2009 interview with CBS News, he said was "probably my favorite war movie. That's one of the most entertaining movies ever made and was kind of the touchstone goal for [Inglourious Basterds] to one degree or another. ... Make a World War II movie that's just entertaining, that you just enjoy watching the movie."
Directed by American filmmaking legend John Sturges, the man behind movies like Bad Day at Black Rock and the beloved Seven Samurai Western remake The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape tells the true story of the mass escape of prisoners of war from a German WWII camp, with plenty of embellishment to make the story a bit more palatable for American audiences. Exhibit A is the presence of Captain Virgil Hilts (Steve McQueen), an American G.I., when most of the real-life escapees were British. But when you have Steve McQueen in your movie, and he really wants to do big, historically inaccurate motorcycle stunts, are you not going to let him??
Much like the other great war movies of its day, such as Bridge on the River Kwai or The Longest Day, The Great Escape is tightly paced (despite a prodigious three-hour runtime), suspenseful, and shockingly grim at times. Many of the World War II films of the 1960s came from a place of understanding that members of the audience might have fought in the war, and the films are appropriately hardboiled, emphasizing the process and the mission above things like character psychology. Authenticity was important, too, and despite The Great Escape’s convenient mixing, matching, and Americanizing of its heroes, John Sturges fought to bring the truth of the escape to the forefront as much as possible. Even the opening titles of the movie state that “this is the story as it really happened,” and he reportedly consulted frequently with actor Donald Pleasence on the details of his life as a P.O.W. under German command.
Steve McQueen Is Very Cool in 'The Great Escape'
John Sturges had worked with Steve McQueen prior to The Great Escape, including in another World War II film, 1959’s Frank Sinatra vehicle Never So Few, which was not one of the actor's best. But it was McQueen’s turn in Sturges’ The Magnificent Seven (a film with one of the best Western shootouts ever) that announced him as a star, letting audiences watch him rob the spotlight from screen veterans with ease and a penchant for cool tricks. He was a natural fit for the role of Captain Hilts in The Great Escape, the largely invented American hero whose rebellious nature puts him regularly at odds with Oberst von Luger (Hannes Messemer), the German leader of the camp who takes pride in its strength and impenetrable borders. After one escape attempt too many, Hilts is placed in the cooler with the Scottish “mole” Ives (Angus Lennie), and the plotting begins in earnest. As Hilts notes, the cooler’s size indicates “they must be expecting a lot of business.”
While McQueen is certainly the standout of the movie’s massive cast, the ensemble includes actors like James Coburn and Charles Bronson, who also made big impressions in The Magnificent Seven. Bronson plays Polish pilot Welinski and Coburn plays the Australian Sedgwick, but everybody (except for Hilts, who plays by his own rules for much of the movie) has a part to play in the planning of the escape. That plan involves digging three tunnels — “Tom,” “Dick,” and “Harry” — so backups are available in case one is detected, which eventually does happen during an impromptu Fourth of July celebration. (Again, the screenplay added a fair bit of additional Americana to the true story.)
'The Great Escape' Never Lets Up The Suspense, Even When Drawing From Reality
Image via United Artists
Image via United Artists.
Image via MGM
Image via United Artists.
Image via MGM
The best part of a war movie like The Great Escape is watching the plan come together, seeing the slow growth of trust and friendship between men like Hendley (James Garner), Bartlett (Richard Attenborough, many years before his iconic Jurassic Park role), MacDonald (Pleasence), and others. With every individual member of the cast playing their part, the building of the tunnels is portrayed as methodical, tactile, and realistic, just as Sturges intended. The actual escape sequence, as intense and suspenseful as it gets, is somewhat overshadowed by McQueen’s wild motorcycle ride for the Swiss border, but it’s hard to deny the results. McQueen’s motorcycle stunt was reportedly a condition for his being in the film in the first place, which makes it reasonable to ask if he had to do much acting to be such a memorable rebel in the movie.
The Great Escape still stands as one of the best World War II films, as well as one of the best prison-break films ever. With its massive cast of iconic character actors, it’s the rare war movie that actually holds onto its suspense for the whole of its running time, even as it grinds its way to a dark, true-to-life conclusion. The suspense comes from a mix of dialogue (watching the characters holding onto the truth of the escape plan is incredibly engaging) and action staging, a mix you can tell influenced Tarantino's work — he famously restaged a scene from The Great Escape with the character of Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) in his 2019 film Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood. The ending of the movie is a bittersweet tribute to the lives lost and escapes made in the real prison camp, shifting it from Hollywood entertainment to something truly resonant.
