The Story Behind the Filming of Steve McQueen’s Dramatic Fence-Jump Scene in “The Great Escape”
The Story Behind the Filming of Steve McQueen’s Dramatic Fence-Jump Scene in “The Great Escape” The Great Escape is a 1963 American World War II epic film that depicts an escape by British Commonwealth prisoners of war from a German POW camp. The film is based on Paul Brickhill’s 1950 book of the same name, a non-fiction first-hand account of the mass escape from Stalag Luft III in Sagan (now Żagań, Poland), in the province of Lower Silesia, Nazi Germany. A heavily fictionalized version of the escape is depicted in the film. The film was produced and directed by John Sturges. Steve McQueen stars in one of his most popular roles as American pilot Virgil Hilts aka ‘The Cooler King,’ named after the amount of time he spends in the ‘cooler’ after repeated escape attempts and run ins with the camp commandant. The famous Virgil Hilts motorcycle chase which is an integral part of the film’s appeal was McQueen’s idea. Initially the Hilts escape attempt was supposed to be by train, but McQu