The Great Escape (film)

The Great Escape is a 1963 American World War II epic film by DeLuxe Color based on an escape by British Commonwealth prisoners of war from a German POW camp during World War II, starring Steve McQueen, James Garner and Richard Attenborough filmed in Panavision.

In 1943, having expended enormous resources on recapturing escaped Allied prisoners of war POWs, the Germans move the most determined to a new, highsecurity prisoner of war camp. The commandant, Luftwaffe Colonel von Luger Hannes Messemer, tells the senior British officer, Group Captain Ramsey James Donald, There will be no escapes from this camp. Von Luger points out the various features of the new camp designed to prevent escape, as well as the perks the prisoners will receive as an incentive not to try. After several failed escape attempts on the first day, the POWs settle into life at the prison camp.Meanwhile, Gestapo and SD agents bring RAF Squadron Leader Roger Bartlett Richard Attenborough to the camp. Known as Big X, Bartlett is introduced as the principal organiser of escapes. As Kuhn Hans Reiser leaves, he warns Bartlett that if he escapes again, he will be shot. However, locked up with every escape artist in Germany, Bartlett immediately plans the greatest escape attempted, with tunnels for breaking out 250 prisoners, to the point that as many troops and resources as possible will be wasted on finding POWs instead of being used on the front line. The prisoners work on three tunnels simultaneously, calling them Tom, Dick, and Harry. ........

Source: Wikipedia