The Great Escape

A WWII film based on actual events and on the book written by one of the prisoners of war. This is a light movie, with a fun feel to it (most of the time) and that's OK. The first part of the film is drama with light comedy (at times), the second part of the film is action-suspense. I like it that we see how the prisoners coordinated and manage to build a very elaborate escape tunnel, actually three of them. I don't want to give away too much. So I'll just say:

This is a very enjoyable film. I liked the star filled cast: Steve McQueen, Donald Pleasence, Charles Bronson, James Garner all were great personalities in this film and added to the huge ensemble cast. I learned in the DVD extras that the exterior shots were filmed in Germany, so no wonder Germany looks like Germany! and not California! That alone makes the film worth watching...The Stalag prisoner camp was built almost to duplication of the original, which was located in Poland. The sets look great and so does the movie itself as it was shot in wide screen Cinemascope.

I'm guessing that the The Great Escape was the inspiration for the TV show Hogan's Heroes. Though that's just my guess, but there's a lot of similarities going on.