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Steve McQueen and the ‘repellent, horrific’ truth about The Great Escape
The Telegraph via Yahoo ^ | 06/19/2023 | Tom Fordy

Posted on 06/19/2023 8:36:51 AM PDT by DFG

89 Tom Fordy Mon, June 19, 2023 at 8:02 AM CDT Steve McQueen in The Great Escape Steve McQueen in The Great Escape - Alamy In the opening minutes of The Great Escape, “the Kommandant” (Hannes Messemer) of the Stalag Luft III prisoner-of-war camp warns Captain Ramsey (James Donald) against trying to escape. Ramsey’s rabble of captured Allied airmen are prolific, well-known escapers – but the Kommandant wants a quiet life. Ramsey, however, is having none of it. As the senior British POW, he tells the Kommandant straight: “It is the sworn duty of all officers to try to escape.”

It’s those words that set the tally-ho, sticking-it-to-Jerry tone of The Great Escape – the indomitable spirit that bobs along to the sound of its much-whistled theme tune.

The film, now celebrating its 60th anniversary, is a tremendous, undisputed classic. It’s the stuff that bank holiday afternoons were made for – all machismo, schoolboy pluck, and belly-firing derring-do. The Great Escape is also well known for its flagrant, Hollywood-friendly fabrications, best personified by Steve McQueen’s Captain Virgil Hilts – a wholly invented motorcycle rebel. Starring alongside McQueen is in a line-up of based-loosely-on-fact or fictional POWs: Richard Attenborough’s mastermind; Donald Pleasence’s almost-blind forger; James Garner’s fast-talking scrounger; and Charles Bronson’s claustrophobic digger. The Great Escape plays as much like a heist as a prison break.

For the most part, however, it’s a broadly accurate retelling of how, in March 1944, 76 POWs tunnelled their way out of Stalag Luft III. According to historian Guy Walters, author of The Real Great Escape, it’s the tone that’s wrong.

(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...


TOPICS: TV/Movies
KEYWORDS: brickhill; greatescape; mcqeen; stalagluftiii; worldwar2
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To: God luvs America

Which author stated that?
I know it to be true but whovhad the guts to say it.


21 posted on 06/19/2023 10:21:31 AM PDT by Reily (!!)
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To: ColoCdn

Charles Bronson (born Charles Dennis Buchinsky) was the son of a Lithuanian immigrant father and the 11th of 15 children. He started working in the mines at age 10 when his father died. He earned $1 for every ton of coal mined. He did not speak English growing up. Besides English, he could also speak Lithuanian, Russian and Greek.

In 1943, Buchinsky joined the US Army Air Forces. He flew 25 missions as a B-29 gunner in combat missions over Japan with the 61st Bombardment Squadron in Guam.


22 posted on 06/19/2023 10:23:30 AM PDT by DFG
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To: MadMax, the Grinning Reaper; Phinneous; golux; yelostar; SJackson

The film, now celebrating its 60th anniversary...

Who can ever keep up?! I was just about to run out the door.

Wikipedia:

Release dates
June 20, 1963 (London)
July 4, 1963 (United States)
Running time 172 minutes

I didn't even think to check that when I wrote on the 12th:

<<<

Normally Moses is made analogous to a fish. Joshua being the "son of Nun"; i.e. disciple of Moses the nun, fish. Yet Moses' bride was... a bird. Nobody'd noticed the mixed species issue? I don't know, but sometime back I went in the direction of waterfowl, because Moses was drawn out of the water. That's when I found the diving duck named the Greater scaup.

See, it's not just a movie starring Steve McQueen.

Weaving, and the beginning of the 42 "Stations of the Exodus"

>>>

Or on the 16th, re 172:

"Those familiar with the material on inner.org would know that formatting drops out, notably the superscripts, which makes for some interesting reading. For example:"

<<<

Of course, for the sake of brevity I had left out the number of scruples:

Apothecaries' Weight: US (UK pre 1824)

5,760 grains = 288 scruples = 96 drams = 12 ounces = 1 pound

https://pharmacytechniciantoday.com/certification-exam-review/11-apothecaries-avoirdupois-metric-measurement-systems/

(ounce אונקיה) = 172

Observance really is key, Juneteenth, 528: 'ג'וּנְטִינְת = key מפתח

... otherwise folks would miss the Great Escape!

And that's no joke! Remember the answering machine that was *the* codebreaker in Sneakers?

Cryptography systems are based on mathematical problems...
...so complex they cannot be solved without a key.

Janek* figured out a way to solve those problems without the key...
...and he
hard-wired it into that chip.

- Turn it off.

>>>

No more secrets.

Honey, you and Melissa get your things.

Melissa is a female given name. The name comes from the Greek word μέλισσα (mélissa), "bee",[1] which in turn comes from μέλι (meli), "honey".[2][3] In Hittite, melit signifies "honey".[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melissa

*Janek

(colloquial) a diminutive of the male given name Jan
(derogatory) Alternative form of janek ("fool")

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Janek

It's like the luck of the Irish:

"During the gold and silver rush years in the second half of the 19th century, a number of the most famous and successful miners were of Irish and Irish American birth... Over time this association of the Irish with mining fortunes led to the expression 'luck of the Irish.'

"Of course, it carried with it a certain tone of derision, as if to say, only by sheer luck, as opposed to brains, could these fools succeed."

https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/history/phrase-luck-of-the-irish

 

Remember that poor fool in the Bible named Naval? Poor Abigail. Well anyway, Naval [נבל] means fool, but "נבל" will also take you over here "on the half shekel", for the atonement of souls.

🍿🤓🍿

Shamrock ☘️ Not to be confused with 🍀 Four Leaf Clover, though their applications may overlap.

(Okay now I'm out the door..)

23 posted on 06/19/2023 10:24:35 AM PDT by Ezekiel (🆘️ "Come fly with US". Ingenuity -- because the Son of David begins with Mars ♂️, aka every man)
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To: DFG

Why send everyone to yahoo instead of to the actual source?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/the-great-escape-steve-mcqueen-true-story-stalag-luft/


24 posted on 06/19/2023 10:35:16 AM PDT by ansel12 (NATO warrior under Reagan, and RA under Nixon, bemoaning the pro-Russians from Vietnam to Ukraine.)
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

I disagree with the author that there was no duty for a prisoner to try to escape. It may not have been part of an actual sworn oath, but the duty to continue opposing the enemy was still there. I also disagree with the implication that the Great Escape was some kind of futile gesture. It caused the Germans to devote significant resources to recapturing the escapees.


25 posted on 06/19/2023 10:35:38 AM PDT by HartleyMBaldwin
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To: rlmorel

Hollywood rarely gets the real story right, especially if it’s true. Even worse if it’s fiction.

Producers and directors want romance and mass appeal, so they include as much femininity-appealing stuff as they can cram in.

There are several books I have read, fiction and non-fiction that Hollywood has butchered on film.................


26 posted on 06/19/2023 10:40:57 AM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
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To: Red Badger

True. I took particular exception to that one, though, because it would have made such a great movie.


27 posted on 06/19/2023 10:43:40 AM PDT by rlmorel ("If you think tough men are dangerous, just wait until you see what weak men are capable of." JBP)
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To: Reily

No one said it about Hidden Figures. I just stole the line the guy used for the Great Escape article and wondered if anyone would have the guts to do the same for Hidden Figures.


28 posted on 06/19/2023 10:44:23 AM PDT by God luvs America (63.5 million pay no income tax and vote for DemoKrats...)
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To: Magnum44

James Garner had a pretty extraordinary war record, joining the Merchant Marine at 16 in WWII and then the National Guard, and then 14 months as a rifleman in the Korean War.

Combat Infantry Badge

Purple Heart

National Defense
Service Medal

Korean War
Service Medal

Merchant Marine
Combat Medal

Merchant Marine
Atlantic War Zone Medal

Merchant Marine
World War II Victory Medal

United Nations
Service Medal for Korea

United States Army
Presidential Unit Citation

Republic of Korea
Presidential Unit Citation


29 posted on 06/19/2023 10:47:11 AM PDT by ansel12 (NATO warrior under Reagan, and RA under Nixon, bemoaning the pro-Russians from Vietnam to Ukraine.)
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To: MeganC

It was “white men doing heroic things” that defeated the Axis in WWII!!!!


30 posted on 06/19/2023 10:48:48 AM PDT by Honorary Serb (Kosovo is Serbia! Free Srpska! Abolish ICTY!)
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To: DFG

So I had to go to and read the article to find out that the “repellent, horrible truth” was that the scene at the end was somewhat grislier and more awful than it actually was? Deceptive headline.

Anyway, it’s nice to commemorate the picture — probably the one movie that I saw the most times in the course of my life — and indirectly commemorate the real prison escapees.


31 posted on 06/19/2023 10:48:57 AM PDT by x
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To: Honorary Serb

32 posted on 06/19/2023 10:50:07 AM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: DFG

One of my all time favorite movies, but as I recall, all the Americans were transferred out of the camp before the escape occurred.

Also, Donald Pleasence, on 31 August 1944, his Lancaster NE112 was shot down during an attack on Agenville, and he was captured and imprisoned in the German prisoner-of-war camp Stalag Luft I.


33 posted on 06/19/2023 10:52:32 AM PDT by 109ACS (Wanted Dead or Alive: Schrödinger's Cat)
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To: windsorknot

Funny that they made Lithuanian/Tatar Charles Bučinskis/Buchinsky/Bronson the American, and All-American Samantha Stevens the Russian.


34 posted on 06/19/2023 10:53:24 AM PDT by x
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To: 109ACS
Donald Pleasence, on 31 August 1944, his Lancaster NE112 was shot down during an attack on Agenville, and he was captured and imprisoned in the German prisoner-of-war camp Stalag Luft I.

He would have escaped in real life, but his glasses were broken.

35 posted on 06/19/2023 10:54:27 AM PDT by x
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To: DFG
I saw the movie when I was young and loved it. I didn't care if it was based on real events or not.

Walters’ book is critical of Bushell for pushing forward with an operation that was “unsound, doomed, dangerous and superfluous to the war effort”.

I would disagree. If I were a prisoner, I would welcome any offer of hope via an escape plan regardless of the potential outcome.

In a POW camp, without hope, men just give up and accept death......

36 posted on 06/19/2023 10:57:09 AM PDT by Hot Tabasco
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To: dfwgator

Today’s college age yutes...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8Rlf0UWjJM


37 posted on 06/19/2023 11:01:03 AM PDT by RckyRaCoCo (Please Pray For My Brother Ken.)
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To: x

:-)


38 posted on 06/19/2023 11:01:28 AM PDT by windsorknot
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To: Steely Tom

I liked his character in The Cincinnati Kid.


39 posted on 06/19/2023 11:01:57 AM PDT by KC Burke (Diversity, Inclusion and Equity is not another way to spell GOD but it is a way to spell DIE.)
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To: Bloody Sam Roberts

Or this...

https://youtu.be/0Wob10lOLWY?t=65


40 posted on 06/19/2023 11:08:54 AM PDT by Organic Panic (Democrats. Memories as short as Joe Biden's eyes)
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