The Great Escape II: The Untold Story

Bad acting and even worse story line. Where did all the American come from ???. The American had nothing to do with the Great Escape and definitely nothing to do with the investigation at the end of the war. Then when did Hollywood ever let the truth get in the way of a (not so) good story.

As a thriller, I have seen worse in television. Escape suspense was so-so, postwar plot not that much, albeit interesting in the portrayal of the protection granted to nazi criminals in exploiting them as assets for the cold war. Acring, as expected of the cast was simply hineous, with the probable exception of Donald Pleasance and even his talent was botched by an amateurish direction job. About the factual content, I cannot judge, knowing barely nothing about it but what was presented by the original film but even if the miniseries were accurate, the depiction ruins the story. Watchable if you found it for free and have nothing else to invest your time in.

Beautifully restored by Arrow as part of their new release of John Sturges' masterpiece, The Great Escape II is a very high-profile made-for-TV film that isn't so much a sequel but more of a re-adaptation of the same book the 1963 film was based on and, you know what... it's an underrated little gem. While the first half of the film recounts and condenses much of the climactic events of the original before going off on a parallel tangent, it's the second half where things take a drastically different turn. Directed by Paul Wendkos and Jud Taylor, who played Goff in the original film, the film isn't without style, it genuinely took me by surprise given so much of the film looks rather remarkable, especially the stuff shot by Wendoks in Yugoslavia standing in for the German/Switz countryside. For an NBC TV movie, it's a great deal more brutal in parts than expected, it certainly gets away with a lot for its production. Johnny Mandel's music isn't great but does the job well for the parts that are scored, it lacks a lot of memorable sequences. Where this film really shines is in its performances, especially from the always-fantastic Christopher Reeve alongside Tony Denison and Judd Hirsch, Ian McShane also gets a beefy supporting role and a returning Donald Pleasence even crops up for a while. Granted things go a bit awry in the second half where Screenwriter Walter Davis seemingly shifts the scene to after the war, when Reeve and Denison hunt the war criminals who murdered 50 fellow escapees but it is done with such class and conviction from its cast the clichéd aspects of its writing are more than forgiven. Yes, the film may be a bit predictable and ponderous but if you look at the half that's full rather than the half that's empty, The Great Escape II isn't half-bad.

I only saw this silly made-for-TV sequel in it's chopped-down 93-minute video version, and it was quite obvious that there were many things missing. On the plus side, I didn't care.

Where THE GREAT ESCAPE was a somewhat-fictionalized version of a true story, GE2 is a fictional story which only touches reality at odd points (and sometimes the oddest: the part about recognizing some Gestapo officers from a painting in a nightclub is true).

The real story of the investigation of the Stalag Luft III murders would probably have been a lot more interesting, but there might not have been a part in that for Christopher Reeve.

It's a passable movie if you don't mind a fictionalized version of real wartime events. The idea is there so at least you get the point that it's trying to make. It might not be 8 out of 10 stars but at least it's better than the majority of the Hollywood garbage that's out there these days. I enjoy looking back into these older films and finding gems. I wish this one was a little bit more polished. The one thing that really stuck with me was the idiotic music score that played. This is a serious film with a serious subject matter but they played this music as of it was a joke of some sort. Just by that one gesture the film loses two extra stars from me.