The Great Escape - 1963
Peak McQueen - and James Coburn who I always thought was lame - along with Charlie Bronson once again playing an Indian. Let’s see what we have here -
The music is perfect out of the gate making the POW nazi camp much more upbeat and interesting than let’s say the normal nazi camp might be *need to actually research whether nazis were this professional with their pows. —- not too much detail from a quick search but I’ll be following up on this for the Geneva convention aspect.
Regal to open - and ya know… oddly too nice. Like Home Alone nice.
I like the premise of the movie that these dudes got captured on purpose to break out of camps and pester nazis.
Costume designer is weak sauce on this - everything looks brand new.
McQueen is never happy and never angry - he’s always melancholy like cool hand luke or the hustler - his archetype is so likable.
This opening sequence is pretty lame - very bridge over River Kwai without the edge to it - this much have been a blockbuster nonsense film - this is like oceans eleven. I chose poorly here - I’m gonna ride it out once again because if mcqueen and Bronson but - man - this is goofy lame.
The amount of homoeroticsm is absurdly high - mostly because of the British and soft ass James garner
Rating 7/10 - I need to get harsher on my ratings - but this is like Kelly’s heroes lame - it’s fine - but there’s no drama
