May. 21, 2002 - 7:47 pm

cover
The Great Escape (1963)

finally! this is the last film on the IMDb's top 100 list that i had left to see. that's one more big list in my pocket now. i'll be posting my top 10 list of those films on the diary probably later tonight once i take a look at my voting and all that to figure out exactly what my 10 choices are.

well this film was ok. i'm just going to give it a 6. the plot is based once again on a true story. same as last night. but this is during WWII. a bunch of Allied officers are put in a new German POW camp and they decide to break out. it's a huge breakout. the plan is to get 250 men out all at once by tunnelling out of the camp and into the woods nearby. of course some of them escape.

i'm a little surprised by the cover to the video itself. (see above). this isn't really the story of Steve McQueen's character. the film follows him along with about 14 other of the officers and their individual stories of the escape. i guess just his star presence is meant to attract a lot of viewers though, so whatever.

it was interesting to see Richard Attenborough as an actor and not as director. i really enjoyed a couple of his films that he directed. Gandhi (1982) and Chaplin (1992). he did quite well in this role as the executive officer of the escape. he kind of lead the escape and told everyone what exactly they needed to be doing.

Charles Bronson is a Pole? what? he gets some weird roles. see this entry.

i also was surprised to see Nigel Stock as Cavendish, the surveyor. he played The Colonel in an episode of British television's "The Prisoner" (1967) starring Patrick McGoohan. "Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling" was the name of that episode if you're interested. it was the one with the mind swap thing. weird.

i guess the IMDb list finished up on a rather tepid note, but there were a lot of amazing films on it that i watched before i began the movie diary. as i said, check back later to see the top 10 that i'll be doing. i think i might just get in one more Best Picture before the night is out as well...