One of my favorite flicks.
Posted on 10/12/2019 4:42:14 PM PDT by Twotone
This column was prompted by readers of last week's. As you'll recall, we marked the centenary of Donald Pleasence by celebrating his definitive cinematic Blofeld. That of course prompted some comment about his other roles. Chris Hall, everyone's favorite Macedonian Content Farmer, writes:
Donald Pleasence was not only an excellent Blofeld, but he and Jim Garner basically stole The Great Escape from Steve McQueen and Richard Attenborough.
To which Calvert Whitehurst, a Steyn Club First Week Founding Member from Virginia, adds:
The male bonding (if I may use that word) between James Garner and Donald Pleasence in The Great Escape. I thought those were the best scenes in the movie when I first saw it as a 14-year-old in 1963.
You were ahead of me there, Calvert. The Great Escape is a great Boy's Own caper, and, when you're a boy, you like it for the boy stuff - the planning, the execution, the improvisation, the daring. It usually takes a few more years to appreciate Pleasence and Garner as the most touching relationship in the picture. But the movie is all the better for it.
Pleasence himself was a former PoW, in Stalag Luft I. The Great Escape is set in Stalag Luft III, and based on a true story, although with the usual compressions and composite characters for the sake of effective movie-making. The biggest change derived from the fact that it was an American film, and therefore its American producers wanted Americans in it.
(Excerpt) Read more at steynonline.com ...
Thanks for the heads up, Mark. DVR is set.
Pleasence was also in Telefon with Charles Bronson. Great movie.
That was back when a Democrat could still be an American. That DNC is dead and gone.
I have “Support Your Local Sheriff” and “Support Your Local Gunfighter” on DVD. “Support Your Local Sheriff” is definitely the funnier of the two, especially the sad fate of Madame Orr’s House, its denizens and customers.
I don’t know what Steyn’s smoking but Pleasance did not steal the movie from McQueen. That’s the movie that made mcQ a superstar.
I read his autobiography. Somehow I think he would’ve followed the Dem party wherever it went. He was very nasty about Republicans.
“That’s the movie that made mcQ a superstar.”
Coolest dude of all time!
One of my favorite flicks.
And The Magnificent Seven...
Yes, he’s wonderful in The Magnificent Seven but in terms of his career, it was The Great Escape that put him into superstar category.
I think Donald Pleasance is a very fine actor but he was primarily a stage actor (a Harold Pinter actor) and a character actor in film.
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