Film of the Day: 37

The Great Escape (1963)

The Great Escape (1963)

I remember growing up in a home, where my mother would love to watch soaps like "The Young and the Restless" or "Days of our lives". My father however did not care for these shows and he and I would lye in the basement watching movies from Ben-Hur to The Dirty Dozen to The Time Machine.

I think it's safe to say that it's because of my father that I am so in love with film, as I truly cherished these moments with my father, watching Steve McQueen racing down the streets of San Francisco in his amazing Ford Mustang or Gene Hackman hunting down a French drug lord in downtown New York.

It was his love for these films that also got me so close to my father, and his favourite of these films was none other than The Great Escape. He would endlessly quote the King of Cool with such lines as "two hundred and fifty?!" (upon finding out how many men they had indeed plan to help escape from the camp) or whistle along to the film theme that could never get out of our heads. Of course being that today is Father's Day, I could not help but think of my own father and his love for this film.

The Great Escape was inspired by one of the great French films, Grand Illusion (which I of course never knew of as a child) and it was also the film that introduced me to one of my favourite actors of all and the true Kind of cool... Steve McQueen (in the role that made him a superstar).

The film has became widely known for the famous bike jump over a wire fence to escape the Nazis. McQueen had done all the bike stunts in the film, asides from the jump (as the producers were scared to let McQueen attempt the jump), it was stunt-man Bud Ekins who leaped over the fence in his '61 TT Special 650 Triumph and was forever imprinted in cinema history and in our minds as one of the most famous bike jumps in film history.

It was directed by John Sturges, who had previously made Bad Day at Black Rock and the great remake of Akira Kurusawa's Seven Samurai, The Magnificent Seven (Kurusawa was so impressed by the American remake that he honoured Sturges with a samurai sword). The film also stared James Garner (from The Rockford Files) and English film actor/director Richard Attenbough along with many other actors such as Charles Bronson, Donald Plesence, James Cobern, James Donald and so on.

Steve McQueen as Capt. Hilts "The Cooler King"

This was an adaptation of an actual escape during WWII, however the real escape was a British affair, in fact the Americans mainly worked on the early plans of the escape and worked on the tunnels. The motorcycle run was also fictional and was totally Steve McQueen's idea (Thanks Steve). They also brought on some of the real Ex-POWs to help make the film more authentic and some of the stars, mainly McQueen even spent a lot of time with these Ex-POWs such as Wally Floody.  The film has now became a favourite amongst many film lovers and even inspired a video game.

Life would just not be the same without this treasure, it's even a favourite of Quentin Tarantino. It's one of the first classics that I fell in love with and it's a film that I will never tire of. But mainly it's a film that I love watching mostly with my father. Happy Father's Day Dad and thank you.

Click here for the trailer