Wednesday, May 12, 2010

The Great Escape

Nothing to do with comic or fantasy art, but The Great Escape is the greatest movie ever made. This rip-roaring adventure film was based on true events as chronicled in Paul Brickhill's book.

The movie tells of the story of an attemped breakout from a German POW camp in March 1944. The prisoners hoped to get 200 men out out through the tunnel (one of three tunnels they dug). I won't talk about the results in case you're some kind of philistine that has never seen this movie.

Filmed on location in Germany, this film featured a boatload of stars: Steve McQueen, James Garner, Charles Bronson, Richard Attenborough, Donald Pleasance, James Coburn, David McCallum and James Donald. To name a few.

Below are some movie posters and scans of the covers of a few editions of Brickhill's book.




One-sheet poster, 1963.




Polish one-sheet, 1963.



Japanese poster.




Italian poster.




Australian poster, 1970's re-release.




1970 edition, American. Fawcett-Crest.




1961 edition, American. Fawcett-Crest.




1995 edition, British. Sheridan Book Company.

Further Reading:

The Real Story Behind The Great Escape

The Fifty Airmen who were murdered by the Germans.

The Three Who Got Away.

Stalag Luft III: the Secret Story by Arthur Durand.

The Longest Tunnel by Alan Burgess.

1 comment:

eep said...

The Polish poster is really striking, like so many Soviet-era movie art.