The Great Escape (1963) * FULL LENGTH REACTION
Added 2024-03-29 15:43:50 +0000 UTCThis movie reaction is brought to you by one of our Producers!!
Officially the oldest movie that I've seen, though I've gotten used to the older acting style so it doesn't feel so old π
A great telling of the story, and it's always nice to see my expectations and assumptions shattered. I loved seeing how they acquired the material, and it's pretty crazy to think they managed to work on the tunnels without being discovered. It's either the guards weren't very good, or the prisoners were very crafty.
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- Vero π€©
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Comments
This is the first I hear of any sync issues for this movie and a lot of people have watched it. I either watched it from my library or from YT (USA, free with ads). I just had my recording playing in the background synced with the YT version and it was spot on. It may have been a second off here or there, but that's not a dealbreaker. What is your version from? DVD?
Verowak
2024-07-03 02:55:33 +0000 UTCIt was impossible for me to sync this movie, even in VLC by slowing it down slightly. What ever platform you watched this on was shit. I tried for 10mins. I never have had this problem before, shame, it is one of my favourite movies. I gave up after 10mins .
William
2024-07-02 23:08:33 +0000 UTCI had no idea it was homage to The Great Escape when I had seen it, and clearly didn't remember that scene until I saw you link it lol I feel like rewatching The Simpsons would be very interesting since I would get a lot more references now
Verowak
2024-04-18 01:28:33 +0000 UTCYou mentioned the iconic music at the beginning and that you've heard it many times before. You didn't mention this classic homage to The Great Escape (with a Hitchcock reference a the end): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fweer3qwxjY
PlaidGriffin
2024-04-17 15:23:34 +0000 UTCDavid McCallum was also Allan Quartermain before Harrison Ford was Indiana Jones in "King Solomon's Treasure" (1979)
JAKH
2024-04-08 05:03:48 +0000 UTCI know that he did his own cross country riding but I could be wrong about the jump. (shrug)
JAKH
2024-04-04 05:56:35 +0000 UTCDefinitely don't know most of the movies and actors you mentioned. I only know of the recent "The Man from U.N.C.L.E"
Verowak
2024-04-03 20:42:55 +0000 UTCAll the info I read was that he did not do the iconic jump. Bud Ekins, his stunt double did that jump
Verowak
2024-04-03 20:41:37 +0000 UTCWhat you were expecting was true for the German treatment of Soviet prisoners on the Eastern Front, of Soviet treatment of German POWs, and of Japanese treatment of Allied POW's in the Pacific and Asian mainland. However, the German military made a strong effort to treat Allied prisoners in the West not too badly (not great, but not abusively). There was an understood reciprocity between Western forces that they would mirror each other's treatment of their prisoners. To that end, POW's were held by their opposite number (Air Force held Air Force Prisoners, Navy held Navy prisoners, Army held Army prisoners). And the German military branches put aside their rivalries to resist SS or GeStaPo take over of prisoners because they knew that whatever abuse the POW's suffered would be taken out on POW's from the military branches, not on the GeStaPo or SS. The Waffen SS was in a special position. As formed, uniformed military units, they were subject to capture on the battlefield. The SS monitored them for loyalty and ideology in a variety of ways, and concentrated the most fanatic in a few units. This resulted in a couple of effects: most of the atrocities on the Western Front were committed by only a few units (particularly Sepp Dietrich's 1st SS Panzer Division and the well indoctrinated 12th SS Panzer Division), while the rest of the Waffen SS units on the Western Front absorbed the attitudes of the regular Army units that they were serving with (the Eastern Front was a different story). Sepp Dietrich's 1st SS Panzers were responsible for both the reprisal massacres of French villages in the bocage country after D-Day and the Malmedy Massacre during the Battle of the Bulge. There was no chance of German POW's escaping to return to Germany. The US sent German POW's to the contiguous US, mostly camps in the interior (Midwest and Southwest), and the British sent their German POWs to camps in western Canada rather than holding them in Britain (with a few notable exceptions). For a documentary on the exception: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWT4h1ie_nM
JAKH
2024-04-03 00:47:38 +0000 UTCThe idea that Boyington said the treatment wasn't abusive is questionable considering that he was imprisoned with former Olympian Lieutenant Louis Zamperini, who was a textbook case of Japanese systematic torture (not just abuse) of POW's. The Japanese abuse, torture, and murder of POW's after the Doolittle Raid, on Bataan and Leyte in the Philippines, in Indochina (Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam) and China is well documented. Of the 106,000 Germans taken prisoner at the Battle of Moscow, less then 6,000 survived the Soviet camps (more than a 90% death rate)
JAKH
2024-04-03 00:21:04 +0000 UTCOther good POW movies: "The Bridge On The River Kwai" (1959) w/ Alec Guiness, William Holden "Von Ryan's Express" (1965) w/ Frank Sinatra "Stalag 17" (1953) w/ William Holden, Peter Graves. Otto Preminger. Based on a stage play written by a real-life POW. "Chicken Run" (2000) w/ Mel Gibson. claymation. comedy "Escape from Sobibor" (1987) w/ Rutger Hauer "Hart's War" (2004) w/ Bruce Willis, Collin Farrell, Terrance Howard "The Great Raid" (2005) "Andersonville" (1996)
JAKH
2024-04-03 00:10:53 +0000 UTCMcQueen was also in the classic "The Towering Inferno" (1974) w/ William Holden and Paul Newman. Based on 2 books: "The Tower" and "The Glass Inferno". 2 different studios had film rights to the 2 books, and instead of making competing movies the formed a partnership for a (then) huge budget monster of a production with a cast stacked with many then-big name actors and actresses. Real fire, practical effects, optical effects, and stunts. Interesting off-screen stories about the actors (also watch the making-of videos in the extras section on the disc). Music by John Williams. Charles Bronson was also in the ensemble-cast classic "The Dirty Dozen" (1968) w/ Lee Marvin, Donald Sutherland, Ernest Borgnine, Telly Savalas, & several other then-big names. The original inspiration for DC's "Suicide Squad". David McCallum, playing Royal Navy Lt. Commander Ashley-Pitt later starred in the espionage TV-show "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." and most recently as Medical Examiner "Ducky" Mallard in the procedural drama TV show "NCIS".
JAKH
2024-04-02 23:50:49 +0000 UTCSteve McQueen, Charles Bronson (Danny), and James Coburn (the Aussie) were also together in the 1960 "The Magnificent Seven", based on Akira Kurosawa's 1956 B&W Japanese classic "The Seven Samurai". Hollywood knows a good story when they steal it.
JAKH
2024-04-02 23:20:23 +0000 UTCIn real life Steve McQueen raced cars and motorcycles professionally in addition to acting. He did his own motorcycle riding and stunts for "The Great Escape", including the iconic jump. The car chase in "Bullitt" (he did his own driving for that too) is considered by many to be the one of the best car chases on film. The 2 cars used in filming, the original "'Bullitt" Mustangs", are the Holy Grail of car collectors and muscle car aficionados, with the bad guys' Dodge Chargers being a close second. McQueen also did his own driving in the racing movie "Le Mans". The character Lightning McQueen in the animated "Cars" franchise is named after him.
JAKH
2024-04-02 23:01:10 +0000 UTCHe's in the NASA action-comedy "Space Cowboys" (2000) w/ Clint Eastwood, Donald Sutherland, Tommy Lee Jones, & James Cromwell. Watch it any time after "The Right Stuff". He's also in the modern western action-comedy "Maverick" (1996) w/ Mel Gibson, Jodie Foster, (Canadian) Graham Greene, James Coburn (the Aussie in "The Great Escape"), & Danny Glover. Based on Garner's 1950's-1960's TV show "Maverick" & 1980's TV show "Bret Maverick" with Gibson playing Garner's role.
JAKH
2024-04-02 22:46:48 +0000 UTCAs I understand it, that kind of prisoner abuse during WW II was rarer than you might think. In his autobiography, US Marine Corps fighter ace and Medal of Honor recipient Pappy Boyington described his internment in Japanese POW camps. Having been indoctrinated by all of the wartime propaganda, he was genuinely surprised by the warmth of the Japanese people. Although there certainly were some sadistic guards and officers, most of the Japanese soldiers and civilians treated the Americans with respect, sometimes even risking their own safety to sneak food to the prisoners.
Phil Stubblefield
2024-03-31 20:00:02 +0000 UTCArguably the best of all the spoof films! Also, Val Kilmers first film.
jim Howe
2024-03-31 13:56:24 +0000 UTCI'm looking forward to seeing more James Garner movies, I liked him at Hendley!!
Verowak
2024-03-31 13:55:58 +0000 UTCIt's really hard to recognize actors in movies that are made 30 years apart lol I need to compare the two roles to see the similarities
Verowak
2024-03-31 13:54:08 +0000 UTCThat's how I assumed the prisoners would have been treated. I'm definitely a more pessimistic person π¨
Verowak
2024-03-31 13:53:26 +0000 UTCI have no idea what Top Secret is π
Verowak
2024-03-31 13:52:51 +0000 UTCNeed to catch up on some of the older star, huge cast with the one, Garner (the scrounger) has a great filmography. The anniversary of this was in the last week or so, polish locals (Sagan became part of Poland after the war) held a memorial for the fifty.
Bubba Fett
2024-03-30 02:57:55 +0000 UTCRemember John Hammond of Jurassic Park? He's Big X.
S1lm4r1l
2024-03-29 17:56:59 +0000 UTCI remember how shocked I was the first time I saw the infamous Gestapo reaction following the escape. π’
Phil Stubblefield
2024-03-29 16:20:20 +0000 UTCNice! Great film, but more importantly you are closer than ever to being "able" to watch 'Top Secret!'
jim Howe
2024-03-29 15:46:04 +0000 UTC
