THE GREAT ESCAPE!

(Steve McQueen's Birthday is today!)

John Sturges had directed McQueen in 1960's masterpiece (considered by many to be the last real Western filmed in the United States) The Magnificent Seven. Three years later, McQueen's breakthrough role as an action hero was cemented after a stormy showdown with Sturges in THE GREAT ESCAPE. William Morris Agency executives flew in from California after learning that Sturges sought to release McQueen, who protested his role as too small by refusing to work for two weeks. Thankfully, a truce was struck and McQueen's role was expanded!

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Production of the film took place near Munich, Germany and was based on the 1950 novel by Paul Brickhill based on a true story of a breakout from a World War II German prison camp called Stalag Luft III. Brickhill along with 250 prisoners managed to execute an escape through an underground tunnel. In all, only 76 men escaped; 73 were recaptured and 3 made their way to safety in England. Brickhill was one of the three survivors; the remaining 73 were either executed by the ruthless German gestapo, or returned to maximum security prison. The wait for credibility (and bankability) for Director Sturges took a full 13 years after he read the 1950 Brickhill book. Sturges was shown the door by MGM after proposing a $10 million budget for production. After the enormous success of The Magnificent Seven, Sturges then bolted from MGM to United Artists who gave him the green light for The Great Escape, but reigned in the original budget to just $4 million.

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The Cast: McQueen was signed to play Captain Virgil Hilts, "the Cooler King"; James Gardner was signed as Flight Lieutenant Hendley, "the scrounger". The remaining cast became Charles Bronson as Flight Lieutenant Danny Velinsky, "The Tunnel King"; Richard Attenborough played Squadron Leader Roger Bartlett "Big X"; James Donald is Group Captain Ramsey, The SBO"; Donald Pleasance is Flight Lieutenant Colin Blythe "The Forger"; James Coburn is Flying Officer Louis Sedgewick "The Manufacturer", David McCallum as Lieutenant Commander Eric Ashley-Pitt "Dispersal"; Gordon Jackson is Flight Lieutenant Sandy Macdonald "Intelligence"; John Leyton is Flight Lieutenant William Dickes "The Tunneler"; Angus Lennie is Flying Officer Archibald Ives "The Mole"; Nigel Stock is Flight Lieutenant Denys Cavendish "The Surveyor", and Robert Graf as Werner "The Ferret".

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The deceptively simple plot called for Hilts to break out of the camp, case the area outsideand then allow himself to be caught and placed in solitary confinement (in "The Cooler") in order to provide the valuable information to Attenborough's "Big X". The film works brilliantly as a multi-character vehicle where the cast becomes a truly cohesive unit that creates and maintains the kind of tension American audiences miss in films. McQueen springs to life with a burning intensity after he steals a German officer's motorcycle and is chased by hundreds of Nazi's through a village countryside. According to author Marshall Terrill, Life magazine described McQueen as "the next big movie star". After the films roaring international success, Director Sturges added the following. "When you find somebody with that kind of talent, you use him. Steve is unique. The way Cary Grant is unique, or Spencer Tracy or Marlon Brando. Like most good actors, he likes an attitude---he likes to know where he stands in relation to the action of a scene, rather than just come on and act---then he goes from there. Steve has a great interest in people. Watch him as he sits up there and listens, hunching himself up. That's why you can't take your eyes off him on screen. He's alive!"

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Nominated at the 1964 Academy Awards for Best Picture Editing (Ferris Webster), the screenplay by James Clavell and W.R. Burnett. This is the film that made Steve McQueen "a star"!