The Great Escape [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

Director: John Sturges John Sturges

Overview

"The Great Escape is based on the true story of a group of Allied prisoners of war who managed to escape from an allegedly impenetrable Nazi prison camp during World War II. At the beginning of the film, the Nazis gather all their most devious and troublesome POWs and place them at a new prison camp, which was designed to be impervious to escapes. Immediately, the prisoners develop a scheme where they will leave the camp by building three separate escape tunnels. Richard Attenborough is the British soldier who masterminds the whole plan, and who commands his motley squad--featuring Charles Bronson as a Polish trench-digging expert, James Garner as an American with a talent for theft, Donald Pleasence as a masterful forger, and Steve McQueen as an American rebel--through the construction of the tunnels and, eventually, their escape. An epic adventure film, The Great Escape runs nearly three hours, featuring a rousing Elmer Bernstein score and exciting action sequences -- including a notorious motorcycle chase between McQueen and the Nazis -- the likes of which had never been seen before in Hollywood productions."

Product Details

Release Date:	05/12/2020
UPC:	0715515245814
Original Release:	1963
Rating:	NR
Source:	Criterion Collection
Region Code:	A
Presentation:	[Wide Screen]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Mono, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround]
Language:	English
Time:	2:52:00

Special Features

New, restored 4K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack; Alternate 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack; Two audio commentaries, one from 1991, featuring director John Sturges and composer Elmer Bernstein; the other, from 2003, featuring actors James Coburn, James Garner, and Donald Pleasence; New interview with critic Michael Sragow; "The Great Escape": Heroes Under Ground, a four-part 2001 documentary about the real-life escape from the Stalag Luft III prisoner-of-war camp during World War II, including interviews with POWs held there; The Real Virgil Hilts: A Man Called Jones, a 2001 program on the United States Army Air Forces pilot David Jones, the inspiration for Steve McQueen's character in the film; Return to "The Great Escape," a 1993 program featuring interviews with Coburn, Garner, and actors David McCallum and Jud Taylor; Trailer; English SDH subtitles

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Steve McQueen	Hilts 'The Cooler King'
James Garner	Hendley 'The Scrounger'
Richard Attenborough	Bartlett 'Big X'
James Donald	Ramsey 'The SBO'
Charles Bronson	Danny 'Tunnel King'
Donald Pleasence	Blythe 'The Forger'
James Coburn	Sedgwick 'Manufacturer'
Hannes Messemer	Von Luger 'The Kommandant'
David McCallum	Ashley-Pitt 'Dispersal'
Gordon Jackson	MacDonald 'Intelligence'
John Leyton	Willie 'Tunnel King'
Angus Lennie	Ives 'The Mole'
Nigel Stock	Cavendish 'The Surveyor'
Robert Graf	Werner 'The Ferret'
Jud Taylor	Goff
Hans Reiser	Herr Kuhn
Harry Riebauer	Stratwitch
William Russell	Sorren
Robert Freitag	Capt. Posen
Ulrich Beiger	Preissen
George Mikell	Lt. Dietrich
Lawrence Montaigne	Haynes
Robert Desmond	Griffith 'Tailor'
Til Kiwe	Frick
Heinz Weiss	Kramer
Tom Adams	Dai Nimmo
Karl Otto Alberty	S.S. Officer Steinach
Elmer Bernstein	Composer
Flemming Nordkrog	Composer

Technical Credits

W.R. Burnett

James Clavell

John Goetz

Klaus Nedergaard

Christine Wiegand

Paul Brickhill

John Sturges	Director,Producer
W.R. Burnett	Screenwriter,Screenwriter
James Clavell	Screenwriter,Producer
Walter Mirisch	Executive Producer,Producer
Wayne Fury	Sound Effects
John Goetz	Screenwriter
Klaus Nedergaard	Screenwriter
Christine Wiegand	Screenwriter
A. Paul Pollard	Special Effects
Paul Brickhill	Screenwriter

Editorial Reviews

John Sturges' The Great Escape could easily be the most under-appreciated movie of its genre and decade, which may seem a strange thing to say about a movie that is one of the most popular World War II adventure films ever made. It not only defined the screen personae of Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough and much of the rest of the cast, but along with The Magnificent Seven represented a high-water mark in Sturges' career. Yet, despite that and the millions of dollars it earned at the box office, The Great Escape didn't command much respect until years after its release. Critics lumped the film together with such mammoth World War II productions as The Longest Day, The Guns of Navarone and Battle of the Bulge and overlooked its unique status as a fundamentally tragic movie that still managed to appeal to audiences in an upbeat manner. Beneath the fact-based heroics, the humor of many of the portrayals and Elmer Bernstein's rich, rousing score lay the elements of a classic tragedy. While ordinary viewers responded to the driving dramatic forces among the characters -- Bartlett's obsession, Hilts's self-absorption and cynicism, Hedley's practical approach to survival and the mission -- critics and scholars viewed the movie as an artless, empty blockbuster. They were looking for self-conscious subtlety and obvious artistic touches in a story that required only a straightforward, unpretentious telling. The Great Escape expresses its depth and drama through action rather than ponderous dialogue, and in that sense, was probably too true to its subject for its own good, at least in terms of achieving critical respect. Only in recent years have film historians grudgingly confronted the fact that The Great Escape's audience has broadened since its release, and reappraised its unique qualities. Bruce Eder