When I first saw the movie "The Great Escape," I was 15. I really liked Steve McQueen

The Password Is Courage, made a few years earlier in 1962. The Great Escape borrowed much from this English film except for the relationship humor so marvelously played by Dirk Borgart (which many say also laid the groundwork for TV's Hogan's Heroes.)

More on the film here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056335/

I saw it on TCM a few months ago. Great movie -- definitely worth checking out.

Amazon blurb:

The escape of 76 Allied POWs from Sagan, Stalag Luft III, on March 24, 1944 was accomplished by a 350-foot tunnel hand dug under the prison camp grounds. This dramatic narration of the frustrations, dangers, fears, and tensions is based on previously unavailable camp records and interviews with survivors. The POW's freedom was short-lived with Hitler ordering their recapture and execution. The postwar search for the Gestapo who carried out the fatal orders recounts the fate that met the international group of officers and crewmen. Paul Brickhill's Great Escape (Fawcett, 1986) also relates the tunnel escape efforts but is not as complete.

There was also a Nova from a few years ago...



http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/greatescape/

I must have been 7 or 8 years old. I was most impressed for some reason with Sedgwick, and wanted to write him a letter telling him that I thought it was so cool how he had escaped from the Nazis.

Speaking of the Colin character, when Donald Pleasence offered some advice on a particular scene to (director) John Sturges, he was told to keep his "opinions" to himself. Later, when informed that Pleasence had actually been a POW in a Stalag camp, Sturges requested his technical advice and input on historical accuracy from that point forward.

"Look, sir, you talk about the high command of the Luftwaffe, then the SS and the Gestapo. To me they're the same. We're fighting the bloody lot. There's only one way to put it, sir. They are the common enemies of everyone who believes in freedom." - Squadron Leader Roger Bartlett (Richard Attenborough)

Based on the true story of a German who escaped from a POW camp in Canada and made it back to Germany only to die in a plane crash.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_One_That_Got_Away_%281957_film%29

How did Steve McQueen on his motorbike get to the Swiss border so much faster than James Garner and Donald Pleasance in their airplane?

As an aside, English fans play and sing the theme to The Great Escape to this day at English football (soccer) matches with great gusto...