The Great Escape

2003 also saw the release of a video game based on the film for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox consoles. The British Film Institute published a book (ISBN 0851708099) about the film in 2000, as part of a Modern Classics series. In 2003 it was announced that actor Jean-Claude van Damme wanted to do a remake. The film also won Scott nominations for a César Award for Best Foreign Film and a DGA Award. It starred Christopher Reeve as John Dodge and, interestingly, Pleasence as an SS villain. Khouri won an Academy Award for a Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen; Scott, Davis, Sarandon, cinematographer Adrian Biddle, and film editor Thom Noble also won Oscar nominations. A highly fictionalized, made-for-television sequel, The Great Escape II: The Untold Story, appeared many years later. The film shares plot line and visual elements with other road movies, particularly the 1979 movie Messidor by Alain Tanner.

The POWs were mainly British and Canadian. The film follows the women as they head out in Louise's 1966 Thunderbird for a two-day adventure which starts horribly but then sees them change from victims of circumstance into icons of feminism. The few Americans involved in the true story of the Great Escape were members of either the British or Canadian military (mostly the RAF or RCAF, but John Dodge was in the British army). Brad Pitt (in his first significant role in a major Hollywood film) plays a robber on parole who befriends Thelma on the road. The march tune that serves as the film's main theme, written by Elmer Bernstein, has also become an easily recognisable classic. Michael Madsen plays Louise's boyfriend and Christopher McDonald plays Thelma's controlling husband. Featuring an all-star cast—including Steve McQueen (whose motorcycle chase is the film's most remembered action scene), Richard Attenborough, James Coburn, James Garner, Charles Bronson, and Donald Pleasence—The Great Escape is regarded as a classic, and is traditionally shown in Britain during the Christmas season. Thelma and Louise is a road movie from 1991 conceived and written by Callie Khouri, co-produced and directed by Ridley Scott, and starring Geena Davis as Thelma, Susan Sarandon as Louise, and Harvey Keitel as a sympathetic detective trying to solve crimes that the two women find it easier and easier to commit.

However, despite the presence of the film's high-profile American stars, no Americans were involved in the actual escape. This includes all the real-life details of the plans, tunnels, successes and tragic outcome of the "great escape." Paul Brickhill, an inmate of the original camp, wrote an account of the escape under the same name, upon which the film was based. While the film condenses various aspects of time and place, a disclaimer claims it to be true to the original as much as possible. The story was inspired by an actual escape from prison camp Stalag Luft III in 1944.

The Nazis and Gestapo place them in a new more secure German camp, from which they promptly form a plan to break out as many as 250 men. The Great Escape (1963; director: John Sturges) is a famous World War II film, based on a true story about Allied POWs with a record for escaping from POW camps. The Wooden Horse, Eric Williams (about another escape from the same camp, Stalag Luft III). The Longest Tunnel, Alan Burgess.

The Great Escape, Paul Brickhill. Eric 'Dispersal' Ashley-Pitt) were both married to English actress Jill Ireland: McCallum from May 11, 1957 until 1967, Bronson from October 5, 1968 until her death on May 18, 1990. Cmdr. Danny 'The Tunnel King' Velinski) and David McCallum (Lt.

Lt. Charles Bronson (Flight. In fact, after Albion's final match and the assurance of their safety in the Premiership, the theme tune was played over the sound system at The Hawthorns while ecstatic fans stormed the pitch. In recent days, the term has been widely used in association with the escape of West Bromwich Albion from near-certain relegation from the English Premier League in the 2004-05 season.

In football, "The Great Escape" has become a meme for a club's improbable escape from relegation. The Great Escape is also the title for two different video games. One published by Ocean in 1986 [1] (http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseek.cgi?regexp=^Great+Escape%2c+The$&pub=^Ocean+Software+Ltd$) and another one from SCI [2] (http://www.thegreatescapegame.com/). Naked Gun 33 13 featured a parody of the Great Escape, hiding the dirt in various madcap and otherwise zany ways. Former Monty Python cast members Michael Palin and Terry Jones parodied The Great Escape in their Ripping Yarns series, in an episode entitled "Escape from Stalag Luft 112 B", about a prisoner whose myriad, overly perfectionist escape plans take so long to complete that the war ends before he is able to go through with any of them.

It reached #1 in the UK charts. The Great Escape is also the name of a 1995 album by British band Blur. English football fans enjoy whistling the theme tune during matches. The animated film Chicken Run (2000) contains many references.

In the 1994 film The Shawshank Redemption, a prisoner is seen dispersing debris from a tunnel operation in the exercise yard in the same manner as the inmates of Stalag Luft III. In Red Dwarf episode "Queeg", Lister and The Cat begin whistling the tune as a plan is set in motion to oppose the demanding backup computer, Queeg. In The Simpsons episode "A Streetcar Named Marge" (1992), Maggie plots a "Great Escape" from the Ayn Rand School for Tots.