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The Great Escape (1963)

Approved | Adventure, Drama, Thriller, War

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The Great Escape

• Credits 
• Trailers  [1]
• Image gallery  [19]

All images are copyrighted by their respective copyright holders and/or producers/distributors.

• Angus Lennie
• Hannes Messemer

• Lawrence Montaigne

• See all credits
• #4 Best Adventure Movies
• #6 Best Movies Based on a True Story
• #10 Best Movies and TV Series about the Second World War
• #18 Best Movies of the '60s
• #53 Best US Movies of all time
• #61 Best Drama Movies
• #84 Best Movies in the history of film
• "John Sturges has fashioned a motion picture that entertains, captivates, thrills and stirs."  Variety
• "A few of the wilder episodes in this over-long melodrama (...) are so far beyond plausibility that they could not have happened anyplace."  Bosley Crowther : The New York Times
• "[It] feels less burdened by the model it takes off from, which allows the film to build its own distinct style and thematic preoccupations, even as its influences remain clear (…) Rating: ★★★½ (out of 5)"  Chris Cabin : Slant
• "It's a triumph of sorts that a tale that ends in war crimes could have such a rousing conclusion."  Scott Tobias : AV Club
• "Once this 1963 feature gets going it's good, solid stuff"  Dave Kehr : Chicago Reader
• "The inmates are likable and compelling (...) The formal logistics of the movie are fun, in an orderly and methodical sort of way."  Jesse Hassenger : AV Club
• "'The Great Escape' should always be seen. It reminds us of a history that is all too quickly forgotten (…) Rating: ★★★★★ (out of 5)"  Bob McCabe : Empire
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• 21 My Favorite War Movies (268)
• 29 My Favorite Adventure Movies (123)
• 95 My Favorite Action Movies (111)

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The Great Escape Trailer (1963)

Trailer for The Great Escape .

In 1942, the Germans have built what they consider an escape-proof POW camp where they plan to house all the problem POWs, i.e. those that have made multiple escape attempts in the past. What the Germans don't realize is that they've put all the best escape minds in one location. If they can't escape, these POWs believe it is their military duty to make the enemy place as much effort into their confinement as possible to divert them from other war related pursuits. Royal Air Force Squadron Leader Bartlett plans not just a one or two man escape at a time like most escape attempts in the past have been, but a massive escape of two hundred fifty men through a series of tunnels - if one tunnel is found, they can focus on the others. Each escapee will be provided with a complete set of forged documents and standard clothing. With their reputations preceding them, each POW is assigned a specific task in carrying out the plan. Somewhat outside of the plot are Captain Hilts and Flying Officer Ives - who spent their first thirty days in camp in the cooler together - they who are unofficially assigned as the decoys who will make more rudimentary escape attempts. They ask Hilts to make a more serious task of reconnaissance of the local town if he ever does successfully escape, which of course means his recapture to bring the information back into camp and more time in the cooler. Beyond basic logistical problems and the Germans finding out what's going on, they have potential problems in certain POWs who may become liabilities dealing with their own personal issues.

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• Angus Lennie

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2020 Aliner Ascape Updated Review – Pros And Cons

Aliner ascape: the model with a wet bath.

I rented the Aliner Ascape ST 2020 for two weeks and visited the inside of an Scout model. After that, I decided to review the Ascape model and compare it with other models here in this article.

First and foremost, I would like to mention the most notable feature introduced to the Aliner Ascape product family, is in my opinion, the presence of a wet bath composed of a toilet and a shower in the ST model.

The 2019 Aliner Ascape ST is a great looking trailer on the outside. It is quite different from the previous Aliner Ascape models.

The most notorious feature of this Aliner Ascape ST, as I mentioned above, is that it has a bathroom, a wet bath, to be more precise. Therefore you have a shower and a toilet. This feature is currently present in the Aliner Ascape ST model and not in all Aliner models.

So for those who would like to have a hard-sided pop-up camper or an “A-frame” travel trailer but were resolved to conserve the bathroom as a non-negotiable attribute of the camper, now you have the option of an Aliner Ascape ST with a wet bath.

This new edition of the Aliner Ascape is as every year, the Ascape model from Aliner. It has some features, not all of them great as you will see, that we are discussing right now.

Rear door entry

One of the neat features about the trailer that I really like especially if you like to paddleboard or mountain biking is the rear-entry door. You can take your mountain bikes,  roll them right inside. Likewise, you can introduce your paddleboards in there or a kayak or something like that. Therefore, if you have bought a small SUV and you want to take that equipment with you, it is more convenient to have the rear door versus a side door. It makes it easy to load these objects in and out.

Floorplan looks spacious: excellent dinette configuration

On the inside, I see it well equipped. The floorplan looks well designed and the dinette configuration helps a lot to achieve these results. Rooftop air conditioner (depends on the model because an Aliner Scout can also come with an embedded RV air conditioner mounted on the wall),  two-burner stove, a little sink, three-way refrigerator from Dometic, in the unit I visited.

Includes a nice drawer storage capacity. A satisfactory floorplan that makes good use of the space. A nice and spacious dinette with overhead storage. It converts into a bed and it is quite a large bed too. It is very easy to set up and it makes nearly a queen-size bed.

The Aliner Ascape ST has many unusual features, one of these is its entry door at the back, as we describe here. Also, we must include a drop floor that creates an amazing 6’4″ of interior headspace. A roomy 64″ x 77″ sleeping area is created whenever the dinette is configured for its bed formation.

On the inside, I see that the Aliner Ascape ST looks a bit different than models before 2019. The dinette table actually pops out, the cushions slide in and it converts into a nice full-sized bed.

There are storage areas everywhere. Below the kitchenette and beside the refrigerator, that is a Dometic RV fridge, there is also more storage capacity.

Many features already included in the standard RV delivery

The Aliner Ascape has many standard options included. You do not require additional customization or bespoke options. These features include a solar panel mounted on the front roof (40 watts), an outside shower, aluminum wheels (13″), electric brakes, water heater (6 gallon), refrigerator with freezer (3 cubic ft.), Fantastic Fan, range hood including fan, LED lighting, screen door, stainless steel sink including pullout faucet, 2 burner top stove, twin propane tanks (20 lbs.), microwave oven, and a furnace (16K BTU).

Extras are also available

Still, want some extras? The Ascape only offers a few optional extras, and they are available in one package only:

• Carefree 5 ft. awning mounted over back door
• 9200 BTU roof-mounted A/C
• Flat-screen TV (23′ ) with Bluetooth soundbar.
• Thetford cassette toilet

An Ascape that is fully loaded will retail for about $20,000, making it possible to get one in the mid-tens.

The lights have dimmer switches. You have also indirect lighting down on the floor, to keep it easy to move around at night. You can change the blinds for pull-down shades

Many features come already included in the standard configuration

Air Conditioner in the Aliner Ascape

Although the optional air conditioner is mounted on the roof in the Aliner Ascape, Aliner has installed wall mounted units in other product lines like the Aliner Scout. The newer models will, however, come with the unit mounted on the roof. The option package including the RV AC unit normally excludes the Fantastic Fan as we understand.

If you do however want the Fantastic Fan and the RV air conditioner that is wall-mounted, there are some of these combinations available.

Stabilizer Jacks In All Corners

So I continue on the outside, and I see that the ST variant also has four stabilizer jacks so that will keep your trailer nice and stable when you have it parked and when you are camping .

It is really nice to see in this trailer that you have four stabilizer jacks on all four corners. Lightweight travel trailers like this only come with two, so this feature is excellent.

Water Systems

The Ascape has a fully-fledged water system with water heater. It has an exterior hot and cold shower, furnace. Also, there are full hookups with power water, so you can use it in a park or you can take it off the grid and use it out in the outback.

Construction And General Aspect

On the outside, the Aliner Ascape is made from smooth aluminum with the roof made from a single sheet of aluminum. It comes standard with a spare tire mounted in the front, as well as four stabilizer jacks, as we described above. Four color options are also available.

Please see the picture below to discover the standard options: In the exterior, the outside part, they keep the nice diamond plating. On the bottom, it comes with a propane tank, spare tire there on the front, and air conditioner up top in the roof.

The whole bottom of the trailer is diamond plated, so this protects the trailer very well. It also looks very beautiful, I think. There are nice frameless windows, it seals up really nice because you have a real rubber bulb seal inside. It is not sealed with silicone. The entire travel trailer is made mostly aluminum, with no fiberglass presence that I can notice.

Aluminum framing, aluminum skin on the outside. This is the reason why it is very lightweight and the neat teardrop shape makes it very aerodynamic, so super easy to tow. However, it is not a teardrop camper , it is really an ” a frame ” travel trailer.

The Ascape measures 13 ft. from tail to hitch, and weighs around 1700 lbs. with all the options. The external height is 7’5″ with no A/C installed, while this increases to 8’4″ with the RV air conditioner added to the top. The overall width is 73″ with the box width at 66″.

A good part of the structure is aluminum. However, the frame is powder-coated steel with a torsion axle. The roof is aluminum. The side walls are fiberglass laminated.

In the front, it has a large front basket area where the spare tire is located, but you could also keep your jack, straps, or similar accessories like that in there. Propane tanks and batteries go there in the basket as well.

The Aliner Ascape ST Wet Bath

We mentioned already the inclusion of a wet bath in this model. This is a shower and a toilet in a single module without a sink. All the surfaces in a wet bathroom can be wet or damp.

Easy To Tow

The Ascape is ideal for individuals with a tow vehicle that has a minimal towing capacity . It is however also aimed at a growing market segment, i.e. single women wanting something that is easy to tow. The Ascape Aliner can be towed with a four-cylinder Subaru Outback, to put an example.

With a tongue weight of 170 lbs. and a GVWR (gross vehicle weight rating) of 2500 pounds, this travel trailer allows about 700 to 800 lbs. capacity for cargo.

Kitchenette Is OK

Now about the kitchenette, it is a two-burner cooktop using propane gas. The kitchenette has a nice backsplash area. Not too different than other similar models. Nothing special in the kitchenette.

Going Off The Grid With An Aliner Ascape

This trailer will also work well for people wanting to go off the grid for a while. The standard twin propane tanks and solar panels do offer extended boondocking time. It might also do well for those who simply want a cool looking, unique small trailer with good features.

Aliner Ascape narrow footprint and structural stability

As the footprint in the Aliner Ascape is so narrow, I had several doubts about how the travel trailer will behave in the road when it is exposed to bypassing vehicles and crosswinds. well, I did not have any issue at all, and I enjoyed instead a very smooth ride. No lateral sway and no bouncing at all.

Conclusions Of My Aliner Ascape Experience

Our overall impressions, from my wife and myself, of the Ascape is very positive. Although it would have been nice to have a wet bath in all options (currently in the last update of the article, you have a wet bath in the Aliner Ascape ST), this would have taken away most of the storage given the small footprint. Aliner has however been very creative for the more than 3 decades they have been in the business, so they might still be able to do this.

Since 1984, Aliner has manufactured pop up campers with hard sides, and they are generally regarded as the  de facto  standard in the industry, while other RV manufacturers follow along.  Aliner  tried their hand at a conventional small travel trailer late in the 2000s with the Amelia and Marco models. This experiment did however not last long and had limited success. Aliner has however recently introduced the 13-foot Ascape, returning to the market for small travel trailers.

The Aliner Ascape is manufactured at the company’s plant in  Mt Pleasant, Pennsylvania . It is cool to see a company bring out something that is totally unique and the Ascape has many new features, despite its small size.

Anthony Foxx

I am Tony, an RV designer and RV developer. I create bill of materials for RV manufacturers for travel trailers and fifth wheels. I worked as a freelance transportation consultant for Lyft. As an RV development consultant, I create customization trees for RV manufacturers who want to offer a solution to prospective customers to design their custom RV with variant configuration. Apart from this, I sell in Indiana trailer hitches, hitch balls, goosenecks and weight distribution systems where I provide advice to customers who want to know which is their towing capacity, which hitch ball should they utilize and how to deploy a weight distribution system. I do my best to explain all these processes and their installation, here in RV Favorites.

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The Great Escape

Images from this picture were burned into our Boomer childhood brains … we actually sat still for almost three hours to watch it. John Sturges’ epic show is like a fine-tuned watch — its unbreakable story is populated by ideal characters that become instant heroes, just for acting like normal men that want free of confinement. It’s really about freedom — after two hours in the POW compound, the fugitives set loose in the wide, green beauty of Germany might as well be escaping into a wonderland of light and space. In its own way this show made our parents’ wartime experience come alive — it’s THE picture to interest kids in events of the past.

The Great Escape Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 1027 1963 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 172 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date May 12, 2020 / 39.95 Starring: Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough, James Donald, Charles Bronson, Donald Pleasence, James Coburn, Hannes Messemer, David McCallum, Gordon Jackson, Angus Lennie, Nigel Stock, Robert Graf, Karl-Otto Alberty, George Mikell, Til Kiwe. Cinematography: Daniel L. Fapp Film Editor: Ferris Webster Original Music: Elmer Bernstein Assistant directors: John Flynn, Robert E. Relyea Stunts: Bud Ekins, Chuck Hayward, Loren James, Carey Loftin, Roy N. Sickner Written by James Clavell, W.R. Burnett from the book by Paul Brickhill Produced by John Sturges Directed by John Sturges

1 )  Even if our fathers looked more like Donald Pleasance than James Garner, anything they did in the war effort instantly became a source of intense pride.

And 2),  Steve McQueen had to be the coolest guy on the planet, bar none.

The eye-opening wonder movie sent many of us kids straight to the paperback racks to read Paul Brickhill’s original book. When they later sold posters for college dorm rooms, the ones we most often tacked to the wall were of McQueen and Raquel Welch.

If The Great Escape were made today it would surely be Best Picture material, but in ’63 Acad Noms tended to clot around prestige releases, and John Sturges was slotted as a mere Action director. Escape was nominated for one measly Oscar, for Ferris Webster’s editing.

Still considered more of a ‘Top Of The Pops’ attraction than ‘great cinema,’ this Mirisch Productions super-movie entered the Criterion Collection in 1991, as a laserdisc. John Sturges wasn’t the type to have been profiled in an old French TV documentary, and may have never been the subject of a full camera interview. More on Criterion’s remastered presentation and its extras follows below.

The Great Escape stands well above most post- The Guns of Navarone escapist war movies. It stretches the details a bit, yet maintains a basic fidelity to wartime history. Veterans have had to put up with terrible ‘true accounts’ claiming to honor their sacrifice, like Battle of the Bulge . I’m personally glad my father didn’t live to see Pearl Harbor . United Artists showed the finished copy of Escape to an audience of real ex-POW’s in England, and they loved it. The movie presents them as the most dashing, daring heroes of the 20th century.

The story gives a charismatic group of war captives an opportunity to behave as patriotic juvenile delinquents. The German Luftwaffe moves their most troublesome Allied flyer prisoners into one camp, including Squadron Leader Bartlett, known as ‘Big X’ (Richard Attenborough). He organizes the digging of three tunnels, while Capt. Virgil Hilts (Steve McQueen) persists in abortive one- and two- man breakouts, earning himself the name ‘The Cooler King.’ Bob Anthony Hendley (James Garner) steals for needed items, and blackmails guards to obtain others. The meek Colin Blythe (Donald Pleasance) is a master forger. Bartlett plans to spring hundreds of prisoners all at once, throwing German police into a panic and causing disruption in the high command. But it’s a risky gambit — the SS resents Luftwaffe control over these arrogant POWs. Bartlett has been warned that the next time he escapes and is recaptured, he’ll be shot.

Movies about military downers and defeats don’t have the best of success records — Zulu Dawn is more accurate, but its feel-good pre-sequel Zulu was the big moneymaker. The Great Escape cleverly turns a defeat into a tale of victory. The risk and sacrifice of escape is a personal challenge for men otherwise unable to fight: civilized defiance. Big X’s organized POW battalion confounds the enemy within the parameters of the Fair Rules of War. That their efforts had little effect on the war proper is not the issue. The final tally for the mass escape effort is the same as for the idealistic Dutch students in Paul Verhoeven’s Soldier of Orange : honorable, patriotic resistance mostly gets a lot of good men killed. Yet we celebrate these men for daring to defy their German captors.

The Great Escape can be distinguished from The Bridge on the River Kwai in that the rightness of the mission is never in question. Poor Colonel Nicholson’s fellow POWs die of sickness under brutal Japanese abuse, but the allied airmen under the command of POW leader Ramsey (James Donald) are treated reasonably well. The German guards envy them their Red Cross parcels from home. For men who are well fed, bored and itching to do something, the elaborate escape scheme is a bigger morale booster than building a bridge.

Escape is also unlike The Guns of Navarone , an adventure fantasy with heroic commandos performing 007-like feats of sabotage that singlehandedly change the course of the war. The prisoners may be played by big stars like James Garner or Steve McQueen, but they’re not supermen. The enemy isn’t easily fooled and they don’t carry bad guy guns, the kind incapable of hitting a running hero.

This show has more in common with a heist/caper film, The Asphalt Jungle or Ocean’s Eleven . The schemes, dodges and con games supporting the POWs’ tunneling operation are a caper far more elaborate than a bank job. They’re wholly credible and also entertainingly funny. Unlike Billy Wilder’s cynical Stalag 17 there are no deep-cover German agents among the prisoners to sow discord and paranoia. The escapees’ defiant refusal to accept defeat is inspiring in itself. I’m sure organized criminals and gang members love The Great Escape . I wonder if it made the list of films deemed suitable for screening in prisons?

Director John Sturges was always adept at sketching male relationships. Every prisoner is defined by his function and embellished with character quirks, and nobody is cast against type. We root for every last one of them. James Garner breezes through as yet another Maverick – like virtuous crook. Sight-challenged forger and birdwatcher Donald Pleasance underscores the escapees’ vulnerability. There are no shirkers, doubters or conscientious objectors, only a couple of potential nervous breakdown cases. Diminutive Ives (Angus Lennie) is near the breaking point, but so is the team’s physically strongest member, Charles Bronson.

We kids were intrigued to see that the fate of individual escapees boils down to sheer chance, not the pecking order of star billing. Fumblers like Cavendish (Nigel Stock) and MacDonald (Gordon Jackson) somehow missed out on the lucky breaks afforded the laid-back plodder Sedgwick (James Coburn), who seems to lead a charmed life. Talented escapee and cool customer Ashley-Pitt (David McCallum) finds himself in a situation where honor mandates an immediate, instinctual act of self-sacrifice. I hope the Germans kept records — otherwise, his gallantry would be lost to history.

The Great Escape puts American stars at the forefront of what was actually an all-British affair. The few American POWs in the camp were relocated before the breakout date. But no backlash resulted when Americans Garner and McQueen were given the most exciting escape routes. (Technically, Garner is playing a Canadian.) Long before, U.S.-English diplomacy had taken a hit when the wartime Objective Burma recast what was almost exclusively a British fight into an exclusively American one. The very similar escape film The Colditz Story was authentically all-British; without Hollywood stars it did not attract an American audience. United Artists knew that American stars were essential. They more or less wanted “The Magnificent Seven Escape” and wouldn’t have complained if the prisoners wore cowboy hats and had sexy German girlfriends. But producer-director John Sturges held out for a realistic approach.

The presence of the American stars isn’t insulting because director Sturges emphasizes the ensemble nature of the story. James Garner’s conman isn’t always at the forefront and none of the stars hogs the best dialogue. John Leyton (of the fanciful Great Escape emulator Von Ryan’s Express ) and Lawrence Montaigne are definitely second-string players but are allowed to make their mark. Charles Bronson’s Danny is a Polish flyer for the RAF, which always makes me wonder why the Germans didn’t find an excuse to simply shoot him. Bronson’s role is fatter than that of fellow Magnificent Seven alumnus James Coburn, stuck playing an unlikely Australian among real UK actors with authentic accents.

Steve McQueen’s Virgil Hilts is treated almost like a special effect, in part because he all but blackmailed John Sturges into showcasing his role. Because Hilts mostly stays locked up in solitary confinement, he’s never just another prisoner standing around in wide shots. But he’s present for the important Fourth of July scene, and he gets a showy entrance every time he’s recaptured. Hilts is the only prisoner who scraps with the guards, the only one who plays games in the barbed wire in broad daylight, etc.. If Hilts is present, he’s front ‘n’ center playing the star. McQueen’s brand of self-effacing scene stealing is at its best here. For sheer effectiveness, Escape is probably his best movie.

Most adventure movies ration out the excitement to prevent audience boredom but the writers James Clavell and W.R. Burnett keep the suspense bubbling for two hours before the big breakout arrives. The earlier incidents wind the spring good and tight so that the suspense of the prison break becomes unbearable. The early prison scenes are mostly static and claustrophobic. The confinement reaches its extreme in the digging cave-ins where Charles Bronson’s Tunnel King Danny almost goes nuts. But it’s also carried by the overall design. The settings become grayer and more enclosed, playing a game of sensory deprivation.

But when dawn arrives after the escape, our sudden release into the wide-open beauty of the German countryside is exhilarating, overwhelming. We almost expect the escapees to forget to keep running, and stop for a picnic. All the previous hopes and frustrations are let loose. We want everybody to get clean away. We applaud when James Garner steals an airplane. Steve McQueen’s itch to get his hands on a motorcycle is equally welcome. This is adventure of the highest kind — we’re constantly thinking, “Where were the mistakes made?  What should they have done instead?  What would I do in their place?” The Great Escape fires the imagination; it makes us all feel like the foxes in a grand chase.

The Criterion Collection’s Blu-ray of The Great Escape is billed as a new, restored 4K digital transfer. It carries uncompressed monaural audio as well as an alternate 5.1 surround soundtrack.

The new scan retimed by Criterion is appreciably warmer than MGM’s Blu-ray from 2013, which DVD Beaver rightly notes was bitten by ‘Teal Color Syndrome.’ If all that digital attention doesn’t make Escape look like a new movie, it must be remembered that its original film elements were already severely faded decades ago. I remember an MGM film management director saying back in the early 1990s that ‘there was little to work with.’ The effort to bring back color and contrast is admirable, but the tradeoff is that skin tones can seem monochromatic.

Two major sequences seem more contrasty and grainy than they were originally. Some shots in the Fourth of July dawn get-together were filmed in early morning fog, and others used diffusion filters. Likewise the atmospheric early morning escape scenes, with Hendley stealing the plane and Hilts stealing the motorbike: hazy and diffuse. Is it possible that the effort to sharpen these naturally softer images introduced more grain and contrast?  The scan was sourced from the film’s original negative, but some scenes may be dupes to replace damaged sections. Criterion’s notes tell us that the new scan was timed from collector prints and reference sources at the Academy Archive.

The film’s exciting escape scenes are not diminished. After the confinement of the camp, we spend a couple of reels amid green valleys below spectacular mountains. Free for just a few hours, Hendley and Blythe happily wing their way to Switzerland. When their tiny airplane flew by a mountain castle worthy of Sleeping Beauty, I remember adults and kids clapping.

Criterion didn’t create a bundle of new extras for the disc. Few of the main cast members lived long into the new century, but the film was popular enough for fairly thorough commercial featurette-docus to be produced with surviving stars James Garner, James Coburn, and David McCallum. The docu that compares the film-in-production to the actual events is my favorite, but all three are more than satisfying, even as they cover much of the same ground.

The welcome new video item takes a different approach. Critic Michael Sragow spends a choice few minutes making the case for The Great Escape as a high-point achievement of the directors of the post-war era. John Sturges came to directing from wartime work with William Wyler, and like Richard Fleischer, Anthony Mann and others defined the tough new approach of the 1950s. Sturges did his best to prioritize story values, which became more difficult when the biggest stars acquired power and clout sufficient to bend movie projects to suit their personal desires — Steve McQueen, Frank Sinatra. Sturges made some popular pictures after Escape but the debacle of The Hallelujah Trail crippled his career momentum. If The Great Escape isn’t his best picture, it’s right up there near the top.

The two older commentaries are excellent. The 2003 track has input from James Coburn, James Garner and Donald Pleasance. An earlier track from Criterion’s 1991 six-sided CAV laserdisc ( ← ) gives us the rare opportunity to hear direct input from both John Sturges and composer Elmer Bernstein. David McCallum is still performing on TV’s NCIS — at 87 years of age!  In one of the docus he lauds the appeal of Bernstein’s great music score, which filled us with excitement back in the day.

All through the making of the effects for Close Encounters, this was the music that Steven Spielberg listened to in his green Mercedes convertible while driving to work in Marina Del Rey. Steven Spielberg built a career emulating pictures like The Great Escape , a solid movie-movie that has retained the power to hold audiences spellbound.

With help from Gary Teetzel.

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

The Great Escape Blu-ray rates: Movie: Excellent Video: Very Good Sound: Excellent Supplements: Audio commentary from 1991 featuring John Sturges and Elmer Bernstein; audio commentary from 2003 featuring actors James Coburn, James Garner, and Donald Pleasence; The Great Escape: Heroes Under Ground, a four-part 2001 documentary about the real-life escape from the Stalag Luft III POW camp; 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; new interview-essay with critic Michael Sragow. Plus an illustrated insert foldout with an essay by Sheila O’Malley. Deaf and Hearing-impaired Friendly? YES ; Subtitles: English (feature only) Packaging: One Blu-ray in Keep case Reviewed: April 29, 2020 (6257esca)

Visit CineSavant’s Main Column Page Glenn Erickson answers most reader mail: [email protected]

Text © Copyright 2020 Glenn Erickson

About Glenn Erickson

Glenn Erickson left a small town for UCLA film school, where his spooky student movie about a haunted window landed him a job on the CLOSE ENCOUNTERS effects crew. He’s a writer and a film editor experienced in features, TV commercials, Cannon movie trailers, special montages and disc docus. But he’s most proud of finding the lost ending for a famous film noir, that few people knew was missing. Glenn is grateful for Trailers From Hell’s generous offer of a guest reviewing haven for CineSavant.

Great Escape, The - (Original Trailer)

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‘The Three Musketeers – Part II: Milady’ Review: Eva Green Surprises in French Blockbuster’s Less-Than-Faithful Finale

As in Richard Lester's two-part 1970s adaptation of the Alexandre Dumas novel, the villainous Milady takes the spotlight in the second half, though this time, the film inventively strays from the source.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

Chief Film Critic

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For readers of Alexandre Dumas’ novel, extravagant French adaptation “ The Three Musketeers – Part II: Milady” packs its share of surprises: killing off important characters, sparing others and reimagining allegiances that have stood for nearly two centuries. For viewers of “Part I: D’Artagnan,” however, this swashbuckling sequel feels totally in keeping with what came before. Even the twists track, paying off what amounts to a nearly four-hour investment (not counting however many months audiences may have waited to see how the story ends).

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Bourboulon isn’t the first filmmaker to split Dumas’ novel down the middle. Half a century earlier, Richard Lester directed back-to-back features, dubbed “The Three Musketeers” and “The Four Musketeers” — though the latter was rechristened “They Call Her Milady” (“On l’appelait Milady”) in France, suggesting a precedent for accentuating Green’s character in the second half. She’s an infinitely more interesting source of obsession for D’Artagnan than Constance, who comes across as beatifically banal as played by Khoudri here. That in turn makes D’Artagnan’s efforts to rescue her seem rather uninspired, as if he could be doing something better with his time — like lusting after Milady.

In this telling, Constance stumbled upon the perpetrators of the plot to assassinate the king just before the first part ended, which at least imbues the character with a certain value. Still, it’s far more exciting to see D’Artagnan and Milady together, as they are early on, fighting side by side for a change. Bourboulon’s big innovation in these films can be seen in his action sequences, which typically unfold via elaborate oners — dynamic set-pieces designed to look as though they were captured in a single unbroken shot.

During an early escape, the camera chases after D’Artagnan, running along the lofty fortress parapet. When the young hero finds himself cornered, the lensman plunges right behind brave D’Artagnan into the moat. The effect is far more immersive than most adventure movies, which use quick cutting to place viewers in the fray. The way DP Nicolas Bolduc shoots these well-choreographed, minimally edited sequences, we feel like participants in the action, as in a knife fight that comes just a few scenes later, where the nimble camera is at knee level when D’Artagnan drives a blade through his opponent’s leg.

The other musketeers have less to do this time around, though each remains sworn to protecting the honor of others. Porthos has fallen in love with Aramis’ sister, Mathilde (Camille Rutherford), and together the two confront the cad who took advantage of her. In a rather confusing (but nonetheless exciting) subplot, Athos risks his life to rescue a comrade strapped to a wooden cross. He too has unfinished business with Milady — which remains the case all the way to the end, suggesting a thread that could inspire an off-canon “Part III,” should Bourboulon care to continue the epic.

Stateside, subtitles tend to relegate movies to art-houses, where the kind of young audiences most likely to appreciate such showy theatrics rarely set foot. Like last year’s “Napoleon,” this is megaplex entertainment at its most grand. Still, it would take some clever marketing to transform this import into a “Parasite”-style phenomenon, even if both well-made offerings have the same quality: They fill an entertainment niche that American movies have all but abdicated.

Reviewed online, Dec. 19, 2023. Running time: 121 MIN. (Original title: “Les trois mousquetaires: Milady”)

• Production: (France-Germany-Spain-Belgium) A Samuel Goldwyn Films (in U.S.), Pathé (in France) release of a Dimitri Rassam, Jérôme Seydoux presentation of a Chapter 2, Pathé Films, M6 Films production, in co-production with Constantin Films Produktion, ZDF, Deaplaneta, UMedia, with the participation of OCS, Canal+, M6, in association with Ufund, with the support of La Région Île-de-France, La Région Bretagne in partnership with the CNC, BNP Paribas. (World sales: Pathé, Paris.) Producer: Dimitri Rassam. Co-producer: Ardavan Safaee.
• Crew: Director: Martin Bourboulon. Screenplay: Matthieu Delaporte & Alexandre de La Patellière, based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas. Camera: Nicolas Bolduc. Editor: Célia Lafitedupont. Music: Guillaume Roussel.
• With: François Civil, Vincent Cassel, Romain Duris, Pio Marmaï, Eva Green, Louis Garrel, Vicky Krieps, Lyna Khoudri, Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, Éric Ruf, Marc Barbé, Patrick Mille, Julien Frison. (French dialogue)

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