A REAL TESTAMENT TO COURAGE....
The Great Escape will be screened at the TCMFF 2013 on Friday at 5:30
at the "TCL Chinese Theatre," formerly known as the artist "Grauman's
Chinese Theatre."
Australian author Paul Brickhill detailed the real-life escapades of
the action-packed
The Great Escape in his1950 novel
The
Great Escape, and was a trained RAF fighter pilot who was shot
down over Tunisia in 1943 and then sent to Stalag Luft III where he
was imprisoned with other officers. Because of his own claustrophobia,
he did not assist in the actual digging of the tunnel, but did manage to
tell his story in
The Great Escape, and two other WWII novels,
The Dam Busters, and
Reach For The Sky, all of which
were made into films.
The actual internment camp in the film was entirely recreated outside
of Munich, Germany, and the interior scenes were all filmed at Bavaria
studios while part of the actual escape scene was filmed in a
forested area. The production company thoughtfully replaced 2,000
pine trees which were damaged during the course of filming the action-packed
scenes.
![Image](http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y75/mdrufus/McQueen.jpg)
And because of the manner in which directorJohn Sturges organized the
shoot, Steve McQueen is actualy seen chasing himself as he was allowed to
perform several of the stunts in the motorcycle chase scenes. The most
climactic scene when Hilt's character jumps over the barbed-wire fence
was actualy executed by McQueen's good pal, Bud Ekins, who later
appeared in such films as
Bullitt ,
Animal House, The Blues Brothers,
and
Electra Glide in Blue. Stunt veterans Loren Janes and Conrad E.
Palmisano will participate in a Club TCM panel at 3 p.m. on Friday entitled
"Taking The Fall."
Sir Richard Attenborough, director, writer, and actor appeared as
Bartlett, "Big X," and was popularly known in England for his portrayal of Pinkie Brown in
the classic Brit Noir,
Brighton Rock, while his performance in
Jurassic Park, and
his directorial accomplishments like
Chaplin, A Chorus Line, Gandhi, and
Shadowlands
has endeared him to American audiences. Gordon Jackson, MacDonald, "Intelligence,"
appeared as Hudson in the original
Upstairs, Downstairs on the BBC. John Leyton, Willie,
"Tunnel King," had a high-profile career as a pop-singer in the UK, and also starred in
Von Ryan's
Express. Charles Bronson and James Coburn eventually had high-profile film careers and Ilya Kuryakin
was in David McCallum's future, as well as his current role as "Ducky," Dr. Ronald Mallard, in
NCIS.
In the documentary included as part of the extras in the DVD, Donald
Pleasance discusses his own personal experiences as a POW during WWII,
and how that prepared him for his role as Blythe, "The Forger," in 1963's
The Great Escape. Other cast members also experienced what it was like
as captured POWs during the 1940s, like Hannes Messemer, Von Luger,
"The Kommandant," who was actually interred by the Russians.
It would be lovely if David McCallum could introduce the film along
with Walter Mirisch, as another added guest star to the fabulous TCMFF
2013 lineup this year. Could it happen?
![Image](http://i654.photobucket.com/albums/uu266/EarthSky/jim.jpg)
Happy 85th birthday to The Great Escape screen legend, James Garner!
On a personal note, I used to watch this film with my father who was a
Tank Commander in Patton's Third Army as part of the European Theater. He once
helped liberate a concentration camp in Germany as part of the course of his duties.
My father never wavered in his commitment to the fact that he
had never seen anything like that horror in his life, and would recall how happy the
prisoners were to see the Americans and be released. Films like
The Great Escape, The Pianist,
and
Schindler's List sprang from the realities of the horrors of war, lest we forget...
![Image](http://i1230.photobucket.com/albums/ee485/suesueapplegate/image_zps5b8b837a.jpg)
My father, C.C., and my mother, Dorothy, in 1941, before he had seen some of the horrors of war.
Holocaust Remembrance Day was yesterday, but we need to remember and
struggle against such atrocities every day.
Don't forget to take a peek at David From Seattle's historic blog about his travels to TCMFF 2013 on Route 66:
http://forums.tcm.com/thread.jspa?threa ... 3&tstart=0