They've found Tom!

I felt like a bit of an escapist experience this week, so ended up going to see "The Great Escape" at the cinema.
It was grand to see it on the big screen again. It took me back to my experience of seeing it at the cinema as a little boy, and being totally blown away by it.
Watching the tunnelling stuff in a large darkened room really boosts the claustrophobic effect.
Since I virtually know the screenplay off by heart, I paid more attention to what was going on in the background of a lot of the scenes.
There is so much more to follow in the cinematic image as opposed to the compressed TV format.
For example, in the "4th of July party" scene, where all the POWs are getting trashed on locally distilled hooch, there is some hilariously bad acting by the extras.
They've obviously been told to "appear drunk" , but are doing this in a very unconvincing way by swinging their cups from side to side in a piratey fashion, with smaller groups linking their arms, and swaying about like an old music hall act.
There's also a "Hitler youth" kid who appears in the background of a number of scenes, as a form of Nazi window dressing.
James Coburn's Australian "accent" is still just as funny after all these years.
and Danny ("Tunnel King") played by Charles Bronson, still wears the most disgusting pair of brown corduoroy trousers to escape in, (presumably he was concerned about how his nerves would hold up in the tunnel?)

There are some bits of the film that seem more than a little unlikely, (apart from Steve McQueen's fence-jumping-motorbiking...obviously)
For instance, after the escape a few of the POWs head to the train station to catch the next train out of there.
Isn't this maybe chancing things?
Wouldn't the Germans have suspected this, and checked everyone arriving at the station?
I'd have stayed in the woods, but that might have made the film less interesting?
Also, it's difficult to imagine the circumstances in which a non-German speaking American pilot and a blind, English ornithologist, could penetrate the undoubtedly high security around a German air base, and nick off with one of their planes.
But this is nit picking...it is still the classic adventure yarn.
Happy New Year!