How sleep the brave, who sink to rest, By all their country’s wishes blest! . . . . By fairy hands their knell is rung, By forms unseen their dirge is sung.
Everyone in this world is born to do something great. It is the human, who do not realize what his dream is and dies without accomplishing the work he was born to do. Thus everyone is not called as great. Some people manage to see their ultimate goal, the goal for which they were born and work hard to achieve it. These are brave and great people.
In the year 1944, during the World War – II, a rescue attempt was made which has been taken as the biggest attempt ever in the history of Humanity. The attempt aimed at the rescuing of 250 Prisoners of War (POW) from the Germany’s POW camp – Stalag Luft – III. Due to some mishap, only 76 managed to escape and later only 15 managed to escape. Out of the 61 POWs who were captured, 50 were shot dead.
The movie whose review I aim at writing, is a picturization of these events. The name of the movie is The Great Escape and it has been rated as one of the all time classic Hollywood movies.
About the movie:
Year of Release - 1963
Running Time – 2 hrs and 52 mins.
Genre – Thriller / Strategy
Starcast – Steve McQueen, Richard Attenborough, James Garner , James Donald
Filmed in – 35mm Cinemascope with Delux Colours
The Plot
The plot is the real life story of the biggest escape attempt made in the history. The Germans inaugurated Stalag Luft – III to keep the most mischievous of POW. The POWs were the ones who had the most number of escape events associated with their names. In doing this, unknowingly, the Germans brought the best of minds together. Their efforts were still not in unison until the arrival of Squadron Leader Roger Barret (Richard Attenborough). It was he who brought the experts together to make a highly qualified team and attempts to rescue 250 soldiers in one go. In their day and night effort to achieve their goal, they manage to take 76 soldiers out of which 61 are re-captured. 50 of the recaptured soldiers were killed on their way back to the POW camp. They were asked to come down the truck to relax a bit and were shot dead. Later it was shown that the soldiers were trying to escape.
The Drama and The Screenplay
As it looks, the storyline is simple and required a very good screenplay. Fortunately, the screenplay of this movie is the best I have ever seen. What more, this movie gave rise to a famous slang – Tom, Dick and Harry.
The opening scene of the movie shows the POWs being brought into the newly created camp – Stalag Luft – III. Among the prisoners, the most notorious is Captain Virgil Hilt (Steve McQueen). He has attempted 17 escapes in the past. The first day rather the first 20 minutes at the camp, a huge chaos is created with everyone trying to escape in someway or the other but their attempts being futile. The POWs realize that escaping is not so easy in this case. Hilt has his own plans and he manages to mark a black point (a point which has no covering) in the camp. He is sent to the “cooler” (isolation) for twenty days. In the meantime, there is a new member in the camp – Sq. Leader Barret. Barret has different plans. He wants to create a highly chaotic situation for the Germans and aims at rescuing 250 soldiers from the camp. He believes in underground strategy and plans to have three tunnels – Tom, Dick and Harry for the purpose. The work starts and unfortunately on 4th July, when they are celebrating American Revolution, Tom comes into the enemy’s view. They start up with Harry and manage to finish it up but their calculations make a fool of them and they find the tunnel twenty feet short of the point they have aimed. Now will they be able to escape? How will they escape? How will they move out of Germany? How many will succeed?
These are a few questions which everyone has in his minds. Do watch the movie to get the answers to all these questions.
Viewer’s Verdict
The movie has a solid backbone in form of a fine script. It has great performances by the actors and they realize their potential nicely. This movie shows the WW-II scenario in a very nice manner. Even the bikes used in this movie are BMW which was Germany bike in the second world war.
It is a full three hour epic which is very rare in Hollywood movies (leave aside movies like Lawrence of Arabia). The best part is, for the full three hours, you will be highly entertained. The strategy which the POWs adopt to fulfill their dream of escaping is awesome. The colour of sand in the camp is entirely different from the colour of sand which is a result of digging. The way they dispose off the sand is extremity of strategy.
As per me it is one of the best movies Hollywood has ever delivered. It is a movie teaching us about the hopes, dreams, responsibilities and how to achieve them.
Famous Dialogues
Colin: Afraid this tea’s pathetic. Must have used these wretched leaves about twenty times. It’s not that I mind so much. Tea without milk is so uncivilized.
MacDonald: Oh my God, they found Tom.
Ramsey: Colonel Von Luger, it is the sworn duty of all officers to try to escape.
Von Luger: We have in effect put all our rotten eggs in one basket. And we intend to watch this basket carefully.
Hilts: I haven’t seen Berlin yet, from the ground or from the air, and I plan on doing both before the war is over.
So that was from my part. Now it is your turn to rate my review. Please do it honestly on the basis of its quality. It will help me in becoming more mature.
This review is a result of my decision to keep myself away from music for quite sometime. Hope to deliver more quality reviews in future.
Cheers,
Himanshu aka madsadman