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List Price: $19.98 | | Label: MGM (Video & DVD)
Salesrank: 4629
Released: May 18, 2004 |
| Our Price: $8.51 |
| Used Price: $5.32 |
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MPAA Rating: Unrated
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
In 1943, the Germans opened Stalag Luft North, a maximum-security prisoner-of-war camp, designed tohold even the craftiest escape artists. In doing so, however, the Nazis unwittingly assembled the finest escape team in military historybrilliantly portrayed here by Steve McQueen, James Garner, Charles Bronson and James Coburnwho worked on what became the largest prison breakout ever attempted. One of the most ingenious and suspenseful adventure films of all time, The Great Escape is a masterful collaboration between director John Sturges (The Magnificent Seven), screenwriters James Clavell (Shogun) and W.R. Burnett (Little Caesar), and composer Elmer Bernstein. Based on a true story, The Great Escape is epic entertainment that "entertains,captivates, thrills and stirs" (Variety).
Description of The Great Escape (2-Disc Collector's Set):
A stirring example of courage and the indomitable human spirit, for many John Sturges's The Great Escape is both the definitive World War II drama and the nonpareil prison escape movie. Featuring an unequalled ensemble cast in a rivetingly authentic true-life scenario set to Elmer Bernstein's admirable music, this picture is both a template for subsequent action-adventure movies and one of the last glories of Golden Age Hollywood. Reunited with the director who made him a star in The Magnificent Seven, Steve McQueen gives a career-defining performance as the laconic Hilts, the baseball-loving, motorbike-riding "Cooler King." The rest of the all-male Anglo-American cast--Dickie Attenborough, Donald Pleasance, James Garner, Charles Bronson, David McCallum, James Coburn, and Gordon Jackson--make the most of their meaty roles (though you have to forgive Coburn his Australian accent). Closely based on Paul Brickhill's book, the various escape attempts, scrounging, forging, and ferreting activities are authentically realized thanks also to technical advisor Wally Flood, one of the original tunnel-digging POWs. Sturges orchestrates the climax with total conviction, giving us both high action and very poignant human drama. Without trivializing the grim reality, The Great Escape thrillingly celebrates the heroism of men who never gave up the fight. --Mark Walker
The Great Escape (2-Disc Collector's Set) Reviews:
A Great Classic Movie...... 
2009-11-14 - If you are a classic movie buff like me, this is a must have for your collection. Steve McQueen is great in this movie, along with a whole cast of Hollywood legends.
Worst War Movie 
2009-10-03 - It is a macabre congregation of the lousiest actors' that have ever acted together in this witheringly boring tale of escape from a German Concentration Camp. I can't pin point who was the worst. McQueen, the little rat like creature ( may be was McQueen's jail wife), or the black haired intolerable American who tries to bribe a German Soldier with chocolates. The movie is very boring and absolutely unwatchable. Give it a miss and do yourself a favor..
Paul Lawrence -> Australian Garbage is not welcome. Dirty, regressive, racist society. I spit at you....thugggg.
Anyway Bollywood movies are a better watch than any farty Aussie movie. First, get to the standard of movies made in Mongolia and then talk to me. We had one-tit Kylie Minougue in one of our movie showing her undies ( containing her ever-dry crotch).
HIGHLY ENTERTAINING EVEN IF A LITTLE TOO LONG! 4 1/2 STARS!
2009-09-24 - It had been many years since I last saw this picture, I say picture because that is what we used to call them back in the day. 'The Great Escape' is a interesting film that has an excellent cast. It is well paced for a film almost three hours long and when it gets going it's worth the wait! Sure there are a few minor bumps in this prison war movie, but it is still very engrossing today.
It won't take long before you realize this is where they got the idea for 'Hogan's Heroes'. Any film with McQueen, Garner, Bronson and Coburn in it has to be pretty good..... right? I have the older special edition which looks pretty good, but the extras are trailers and a 24 minute documentary. If you're a fan of this film it's probably worth the upgrade to the new 2 discs edition.
Good, but The Book is Better! 
2009-08-14 - This is one of my all-time favoties movies, but if you have not read the book by Paul Brickhill, you need to. The real story is absolutely amazing and cannnot compare.
A Tribute To Never Giving Up 
2009-06-17 - "It is the duty of a British officer to escape, and to help his fellow prisoners escape." This defiant line sets the stage for one of cinema's best classics, the always-entertaining THE GREAT ESCAPE. Based (ever so loosely) on a true story about an en masse prison break from the German maximum security POW prison Stalag Luft North, this film should not be encountered while channel surfing; inevitably, some three hours later (and no telling how late the ungodly hour), you'll find yourself still watching this tribute to the indomitable human spirit.
What makes this movie work so well is its exceptional ensemble cast. James Garner. Charles Bronson. Richard Attenborough. Donald Pleasance. James Coburn (with a bogus Aussie accent). David McCallum. And a guy by the name of Steve McQueen; his role as an American loner obsessed with "tunneling out" skyrocketed him to superstar status. At three hours some patience is required as the story--the plot to dig not one, but three, escape tunnels out of the stalag--picks up suspense and pace, but once the breakout is staged get ready for some white-knuckling viewing. Four stars instead of five because the predictable Sixties melodrama that occasionally creeps in really irks me. Yet THE GREAT ESCAPE is still enthusiastically recommended.
--D. Mikels, Author, The Reckoning
