The Great Escape

TCM's Dave Karger introduces The Great Escape, 1962.

TCM's Dave Karger introduces The Great Escape, 1962.

Ben Mankiewicz introduces The Great Escape, 1963.

Guest host Dave Karger introduces The Great Escape, 1963.

Ben Mankiewicz introduces The Great Escape, 1963.

Ben Mankiewicz introduces The Great Escape, 1963.

Ben Mankiewicz introduces The Great Escape, 1963.

Joining the introduction of the first of the top-billed stars, Steve McQueen as American P.O.W. Hilts, thrown in the cooler at the new German prison alongside Scottish fellow escape-enthusiast Ives (Angus Lennie), ideas cooking, early in John Sturges’ The Great Escape, 1963.

Fragile Ives (Angus Lennie) with MacDonald (Gordon Jackson) enjoying a 4th of July party when the Germans discover the tunnel named “Tom,” causing Hilts (Steve McQueen) to tell Bartlett (Richard Attenborough) he’ll undertake a daring recon mission, in The Great Escape, 1963.

Observed by commander Bartlett (Richard Attenborough), the tunnel crew (Charles Bronson, John Leyton, James Coburn) finds they need more wood, Hendley, Cavendish and Hilts (James Garner, Nigel Stock, Steve McQueen) on the job, in The Great Escape, 1963.

James Garner as American officer Hendley, in charge of “scrounging” for the mass escape plan and assigned to obtain samples of new German identity papers, ingratiates himself with P.O.W. camp guard Werner (Robert Graf), in John Sturges’ The Great Escape, 1963.

James Garner as American Hendley, appointed as chief “scrounger” of supplies for the upcoming escape attempt, gets to know his new Brit roommate Blythe (Donald Pleasence), whose own role becomes clear, early in John Sturges’ The Great Escape, 1963.

Already established as “Big X,” the recently-apprehended chief of numerous major escapes, Brit officer Bartlett (Richard Attenborough) is received by Ramsey (James Donald), ranking officer at the new Nazi camp designed to hold known escape experts, in The Great Escape, 1963.

Director John Sturges’ opening, Elmer Bernstein’s famous theme, Steve McQueen, James Garner and Richard Attenborough, billed above many future leading-men, from the 1963 hit The Great Escape, based on the best-selling book by Paul Brickhill, himself a participant in the historic World War II events.

Thrown together by the Germans, a group of captive Allied troublemakers plot a daring prison breakout in The Great Escape (1963) starring Steve McQueen, James Garner, and Richard Attenborough.