HISTORY LESSONS: The Great Escape (1963)

Macintosh & Maud Haven't Seen What?!

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CONTENT WARNING: Discussion of prisoners of war, execution, war crimes, torture, concentration camps, Nazis, the SS and Gestapo, war, death, imprisonment.

We’re moving on to World War II this week with a film that more prison break than war movie. Though in this case, it also happens to be 100% real, and the real story might even be more wild than the movie. It’s a star-studded, solid cast with some outstanding writing. Unfortunately, the story is so sweeping, with so many characters, that even 3 hours doesn’t give us quite enough to really latch onto. But despite terrible studio notes and a diva actor in the lead role, it’s still one heck of a movie, even 60 years on. Make sure to empty the dirt from your stockings in the garden as we talk about The Great Escape on Macintosh & Maud Haven’t Seen What?!

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Intro and outro music taken from the Second Movement of Ludwig von Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Hong Kong (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 HK) license. To hear the full performance or get more information, visit the song page at the Internet Archive.

Excerpts taken from the film The Great Escape are © 1963 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. and John Sturges. All Rights Reserved

Excerpt taken from the “National Anthem of the USSR” as performed by The Red Army Choir, copyright 2002 Silva America.