Wednesday, January 23, 2008

The Great Escape (1963)

This is one of the classics. Steve McQueen, Richard Attenborough, James Garner, James Coburn, Charles Bronson all starred in this movie based on a true story about Allied prisoners of war with a record for escaping from German prisoner-of-war camps. The Luftwaffe placed them in a new more secure camp, Stalag Luft III, from which they promptly formed a plan to break out 250 men.

Toys McCoy produced this figure in 1995 and at that time, it was considered an excellent figure. They would go on to produce the ultimate Indiana Jones figure. Perhaps when the new Indiana Jones movie comes out this year, we will be able to see even better figures (one can only hope).

Back to Steve McQueen. Came in a nice box with "prison bars" on the flap.

The back of the box shows the poseability of the figure, baseball and glove as well as the fine stitching plus some screen shots.

The Cooler King, CAPT Virgil Hilts, USAAF. So called because he spent the most time in the cooler (solitary confinement). Hilts is so good at escaping that he is persuaded to reconnoiter the immediate vicinity of the PoW camp during one of his escapes, then allow himself to be recaptured so that the cartographers can create guide maps out of German territory.

Batter up! Steve McQueen as Virgil Hilts with his trademark baseball and glove. When in the cooler, he would throw the baseball against the wall and catch it with his glove to pass the time. In the first Charlie's Angels movie, Bosley (played by Bill Murray) did the same thing while being held hostage by the bad guys.

Steve McQueen came with customised hands, one for gripping the baseball and the other for holding the glove.


Very good likeness of Steve McQueen

Close-up of hands

Close-up of baseball and glove

In 1981, Sylvester Stallone starred alongside British veteran Michael Caine, Bobby Moore and football legend Pelé in Escape to Victory, a sports drama in which he plays a prisoner of war involved in a Nazi propaganda football tournament. The film was inspired by the true story of Dynamo Kiev's players, who defeated Nazi soldiers while Ukraine was occupied by Nazi troops in World War II.

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