DIVERSIONS
(Some Interesting Facts)

Trivia About The 1963 Movie “The Great Escape” Starring Steve McQueen
(Courtesy of Wikipedia)

• Hilts’ (played by Steve McQueen) dash by motorcycle for the border is fictional. It was made on the insistence of McQueen, a keen motorcyclist, and has become one of the most famous action scenes of 1960s classic cinema

• Three tunnels were dug, shored up and lit much as portrayed in the film. One of them was discovered by the Germans just as it was on the verge of completion. Sand from the tunnels was put in bags which were hidden in the prisoners' trousers. The prisoners would wander around the camp and pins sealing the bags would be released, spreading the dirt over the compound. The men doing this job were known as "penguins"

• POWs who came up with plans to escape needed permission to proceed from the Escape Committee. This was in order to avoid conflicting escape plans from canceling each other out: an escaping prisoner being caught by the guards could cause the alarm to be raised and ruin another escape attempt.

• As noted by David McCallum in the DVD extra, the "barbed wire" that Hilts (McQueen) crashed into in the famous motorcycle border escape scene was actually made of little strips of rubber tied around normal wire, and was made by the cast and crew during their free time

• The film depicts “Tom’s entrance as being under a stove and Harry’s as being in a drain stump in a wash room. In actuality, Dick’s entrance was the drain stump and Harry was under the stove. Tom was in a darkened corner

• 50 of those recaptured were murdered by the Gestapo, a serious violation of the Geneva Convention. Investigations made after the war led to the arrest, conviction and, in many cases, execution of those involved

• Roger Bartlett (played by Richard Attenborough), was based on Roger Bushell, the real-life mastermind of the escape who was regarded as a brilliant organiser and leader of men

• Sedgwick (played by James Coburn) is the Australian POW. In real life, this POW is a relative of Liberal Party luminary and former ABC Director, Michael Kroger

1963 “The Great Escape” Movie Bloopers

1. Visible crew/equipment: The first time Hilts (Steve McQueen) is locked up, you can clearly see the edge of the wall and, to the left, a stage hand moving

2. Continuity: When Roger is in the van talking to Macdonald, his face is deliberately dirty and stubbled. When they are about to shoot him, he is clean-shaven. Also, his bruises seem to magically disappear by the evening of the first day

3. Visible crew/equipment: In the scene where everyone is lining up to receive the moonshine made by the Americans, you can see a crew member on the left hand side. He is wearing a red baseball cap and modern clothes, and motions for the extras to go into the main shot to get the alcohol. (Widescreen edition)

4. Continuity: Towards the end of the film, when Hilts (Steve McQueen) is in a motorcycle chase with the German guards, if you watch closely, when the camera cuts away from Hilts and to the German motorcyclists, you might be able to notice that one of the guards chasing McQueen IS actually McQueen himself! They used him to play one (or maybe more) of the guards because of the experience he had with motorcycles. This can also be seen in some behind the scenes footage on the DVD version of the film

5. Revealing: When McQueen steals the motorbike from the German soldiers and rides off, it is clearly a Triumph, a British make, not a BMW or Zundapp which was what the German army used. More to the point it looks like a 1960s model