Scottish-American actor David McCallum, who handed away in 2023 at age 90, was a fixture of the small display for over six many years. Regardless of making his breakout function as worldwide undercover agent Illya Kuryakin within the spy drama The Man from U.N.C.L.E. within the Nineteen Sixties, he was in all probability most well-known to Twenty first-century audiences because the eccentric however good health worker Dr. Donald “Ducky” Mallard on the police procedural sequence NCIS, for which he was an everyday forged member for 20 seasons till his demise.
However even earlier than both of those TV reveals hit the airwaves, McCallum starred in probably the most well-known Hollywood movies of the Nineteen Sixties: the World Conflict II jail movie The Nice Escape. The 1963 film from director John Sturges is a fictionalized depiction of the true mass escape of dozens of Allied troops from a German POW camp in 1944. Identified for its ensemble forged that features McCallum, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, James Garner, and Richard Attenborough, in addition to for that includes probably the most well-known stunt driving sequences in cinematic historical past, the movie is extensively considered a traditional in each the conflict and jail genres.
What’s So Nice About this Escape?
The Nice Escape
- Launch Date
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July 4, 1963
- Runtime
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172 Minutes
- Director
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John Sturges
Stream
The movie opens with a large group of Allied prisoners being delivered to a German camp. Regardless of the German guards’ risk to shoot anybody who makes an attempt to flee, a big coalition of American, British, and different Allied POWs, collectively known as the “X Organisation,” concoct an elaborate plan to dig a sequence of underground tunnels by which to flee en masse into the woods surrounding the camp underneath cowl of night time. It would seem to be the sort of escape plan that might solely exist in a Hollywood movie, however this was certainly how the true Allied POWS escaped. (It is price noting, although, that, in actual life, there have been no People concerned within the escape. However the filmmakers wished to extend the movie’s attraction to American moviegoers by making a number of the prisoners American and casting well-known American actors.)
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In truth, David McCallum’s character, Lieutenant Commander Eric Ashley-Pitt of the Royal Navy, finally ends up enjoying a vital function within the preparation for the escape. When the leaders of the X Organisation notice that they want to determine a technique to conceal all of the dislodged grime from the digging of the tunnels (which is far darker than the surface-level grime within the camp and thus may give away their plan), Ashley-Pitt will get the genius thought to covertly place the underground grime within the small backyard plots subsequent to the camp as they’re being tilled. Ashley-Putt actually embodies the cleverness that may come to outline Ducky’s character on NCIS.
The Bike Scene
In fact, it is unattainable to speak about The Nice Escape with out discussing its most iconic scene. Close to the top of the movie, after escaping from the camp, Steve McQueen’s character, Captain Virgil Hilts, rides a stolen motorbike by the German countryside, attempting to reachi the German-Swiss border, whereas being chased by the German military. Within the scene’s most well-known shot, Hilts, realizing he is surrounded on all sides by German troopers, drives alongside a barbed wire fence till he reaches a small hill that permits the motorbike to leap over the fence. Nonetheless, a second, taller barbed wire fence is behind it, permitting the Germans to disable the motorbike with gunfire and recapture Hilts.
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Regardless of its anticlimactic conclusion, the sequence is remembered as probably the most spectacular shows of stunt driving on a bike in Hollywood historical past, even over six many years later. Curiously, McQueen, regardless of being a talented motorcyclist and stunt driver, couldn’t carry out the soar himself on account of insurance coverage considerations. As a substitute, it was executed by McQueen’s pal and fellow stunt driver, Bud Ekins.
Moreover, the sequence itself is solely fictional – not one of the escapees was ever reported to have ridden a bike throughout their tried flights from Germany. In truth, McQueen himself requested the scene simply so he may exhibit his motorbike expertise to the viewers. Nonetheless, the motorbike chase sequence performed an enormous function in cementing The Nice Escape‘s standing as a traditional. With out it, the movie may need light into obscurity through the years. And, as we are going to see, this movie – and, extra importantly, the real-life story behind it – deserves to be remembered.
The Tragic Legacy of the (Actual) Nice Escape
Regardless of the triumphant tone implied by its title, The Nice Escape doesn’t finish fortunately for almost all of its foremost characters. Not solely does Hilts get caught, however nearly each different escapee is both re-arrested or killed. In probably the movie’s most heartbreaking scene, Ashley-Pitt deliberately assaults a Gestapo officer who acknowledges considered one of his fellow escapees, RAF Squadron Chief Roger Bartlett (Attenborough), at a practice station. The diversion permits his pal to flee, however Ashley-Pitt himself is shot useless by the Gestapo. So as to add insult to harm, Bartlett is later caught by the Gestapo anyway. He, together with a number of different escapees and POWS, are later loaded onto a truck and brought to a distant discipline…the place they’re all shot useless.
Sadly, this scene was not merely a little bit of subversive storytelling by the filmmakers – it actually occurred. In truth, of the 76 males who escaped from the camp, solely three managed to efficiently escape Germany and procure true freedom. The remainder had been re-captured, and Hitler himself ordered that fifty of them be executed (though they had been executed individually, reasonably than as a single group as depicted within the movie). A number of Nazi officers had been later convicted of conflict crimes for his or her involvement in these murders on the well-known Nuremburg Trials after the conflict. Each the hunt and trial for the perpetrators of those atrocities had been later dramatized within the 1988 sequel The Nice Escape II: The Untold Story.
The Nice Escape, due to this fact, isn’t just an escapist motion film that includes a bunch of Hollywood A-listers. It’s a tribute to the lives and recollections of males who refused to cease combating the Nazis, regardless of being their prisoners and finally paying with their lives. The movie will be discovered on a number of streaming platforms, together with Pluto TV and Tubi.