The Great Escape

The Great Escape (1963), directed by John Sturges, is a World War II based movie about the largest mass escape by allies from a POW camp during WWII. Some notable actors who played key roles in the movie were Steve McQueen (Captain Hilts), James Garner (Lt. Hendley), and Charles Bronson (Lt. Danny Velinski).

The greatest part about The Great Escape, is not only the comedic ways of the concentration camp, or even the adventurous ways the guys previously try to escape. No, the greatest part of the whole movie is the dynamite script. The person who was most responsible for the script was James Clavell, who also wrote notable scripts for the household named movies, To Sir, With Love (1967), and The Fly (1958). A little known fact about Clavell: he actually recieved the Writers Guild Best Screenplay Award in 1963 for The Great Escape. That just goes to show how awesome the script was indeed. The main idea for the movie originated from the story of how about 70 POW's in WWII managed to escape Hitler's grasp in newly built captive camps. Paul Brinkhill wrote the novel The Great Escape, of which the movie is based on. The genious these guys displayed were really quite remarkable. They created picks by taking pipes off a car, they made a small hand shovel with the muffler of the car, they disguised thier pounding by singing and they built infrastructure from various pieces of wood taken from behing cabinets and other appliances. Clavell does these geniouses justice by eloquently creating narrative for the guys to mimic what was most likely normal conversation and jargon in the camp during the time.

The suspense of whether or not the germans will find out what they are doing also adds to the film. The secret conversations and meetings held are under supervision from a chain of people sitting outside to make sure the germans dont see them doing anything.

Overall, the movie was good but the script writing was great. In most war movies, the dialogue doesnt matter, just as long as the audience sees a ton of fighting and action. With The Great Escape, the writing is what keeps the audience and attentive and entertained throughout.

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