The Crypto Hacker Guaranteed Scam

They never give up. They never take a hint and go away. The very idea of going and finding a productive and legal way to make a living would never occur to them. Instead they spend their time sending spam and scam emails to random people, and infesting our blogs with comments that have nothing to do with the subject at hand, and only serve to draw the gullible into their trap. I speak, of course, of homo sapiens spammeritis annoyingus, otherwise known as the internet scammers and spammers. Behold what came through recently and got caught by the spam filters here.

My sincere gratitude to Morphohack Cyber Service for helping me recover my crypto assets from the FTX exchange where my deposits of $687,000 worth of coins have been held for more than two months without release.
I thought my assets were gone forever as all means to withdraw from the FTX trading exchange were unsuccessful, but I was told about the services of Morphohack Cyber Services who was able to help me recover my crypto assets after I provided my wallet address and evidence of the transactions. FTX exchange has locked my account for months with no response but thanks to the services of Morphohack Cyber Service, I was able to recover my crypto assets. It’s important to do your due diligence before investing in any platform.

I was swapping in between my stablecoins when I lost $389,000. I was confused and didn’t know how that could happen, I just lost all my crypto and I’m traumatized.
A few days later, a tech guy from my firm contacted a crypto recovery expert Morphohack Cyber Service, who was able to detect that a malicious bot called MEV(Maximum Extractable Value) detected my transaction and front ran it before my transaction was processed. The bot's actions made me lose almost 99% of my funds and stole $389,000. Fortunately for me, Morphohack Cyber Service was able to trace this transaction and retrieve it successfully without any delay while applying its sophisticated software and malware techniques. It seems we have to be up to date with market news and stay alert always.

Sigh. Two variations on the same thing- morphohack. Yeah, that fills me with confidence, because if I actually return these emails, it will end with me getting hacked. We're supposed to believe that these nitwits have invested hundreds of thousands into crypto, that it disappeared, and that this miracle hacker came along and saved the day by getting their money back.

Yeah, right.

First, I have absolutely no confidence in bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency. Never have, never will. But when one posts about spammers and scammers, one is bound to draw comments from them in the very posts we follow up on. So I'm sure that this will draw spam comments. 

Second, I'm not going to trust these random spam comments. They're form letters, both of which have a lot in common with each other. And scammers tend to use the same form letter format- which we see in everything from this to the spell caster to the Cancer Widow to the Beloved Former Tyrant.

Again: No. I don't believe anything these nitwits have to say. All they're good for is as a subject of ridicule. And so to "Curtis Denton" and "Jason Gilreath", the two fake names of whoever the hell sent these, I say this. If you can't find some honest way to make a living, if you can't help yourself but to be a useless scammer, there's only one end for you.

This guy on the other end of the phone.

Dinosaur Hunting And Other Disasters

Some links before getting started today. Norma wrote about the Triple Crown. Parsnip checked in. Eve wrote about naughty or nice. And Maria had tips for writers in regards to disposing of bodies.

Today I have another movie review...

“Oh yeah. Ooohh, aahhh, that’s how it always starts. Then later there’s running, and, ah... screaming.” ~ Ian Malcolm

“Please. Don’t treat me like a grad student. I’ve worked around predators since I was twenty years old. Lions, jackals, hyenas.... you.” ~ Sarah Harding

“Yeah, well, noble was last year. This year I’m getting paid. Hammond’s check cleared, or I wouldn’t be going on this wild goose chase.” ~ Nick Van Owen

“Saddle up! Let’s get this moveable feast underway!” ~ Roland Tembo

“Careful. This suit cost more than your education.” ~Peter Ludlow

 “These creatures require our absence to survive, not our help. And if we could only step aside, and trust in nature, life will find a way.” ~ John Hammond

“Remember that chap about twenty years ago? I forget his name. Climbed Everest without any oxygen, came down nearly dead. When they asked him, they said why did you go up there to die? He said, I didn’t, I went up there to live.” ~ Roland Tembo

“Why don’t people listen to me? I use plain and simple English, I don’t have any accent that I’m aware of...” ~ Ian Malcolm  

“Oh, shut up.” ~ Sarah Harding

After the success of Jurassic Park, it was inevitable that there would be a follow-up. Author Michael Crichton wrote a novel, The Lost World, which would be very loosely adapted in a screenplay by David Koepp, who had co-written the screenplay for the first film. The film follows some of the characters from the original film on a new island where dinosaurs have survived, and features a power struggle between those who wish to protect the animals and those who seek to exploit them.

Four years after the events of the first film, a wealthy family has stopped for a break on the beach on Isla Sorna, off the Costa Rican coast. A young girl wanders off, encountering little dinosaurs that quickly turn on her. The incident allows Peter Ludlow (Arliss Howard), the nephew of John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) to take control of InGen, the company that built the ill fated theme park on the nearby Isla Nublar. Hammond has spent the last few years trying to keep Isla Sorna from being exploited; it’s the site where the dinosaurs were nurtured before being moved to the park, and with the events of the previous film, the animals have been left there to roam wild, and are thriving. Hammond calls in Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), whose reputation has been wrecked by whistleblowing the events at InGen, and explains his dilemma. He can only safeguard the island by getting public opinion on his side, and that requires sending a team in to document the animals in their natural environment. Hammond wants Ian on that team, given his previous experience.

One of the team members happens to be Ian’s girlfriend, Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore), a behavioural palaeontologist who’s already gone ahead to the island. Ian is annoyed by the fact that Hammond’s already taken liberties, and is determined to go to the island and bring Sarah back. He meets the other two members of the team, a logistics specialist, Eddie Carr (Richard Schiff) and a videographer, Nick Van Owen (Vince Vaughn). Things are also complicated by the arrival of Ian’s daughter Kelly (Vanessa Lee Chester). The team set out for the island and a rendezvous with Sarah, not knowing they have a stowaway, and unaware that there is another team with a different agenda- collecting dinosaurs and taking them- coming to the island as well.

The story is more of an adventure straight off than the first film. The characters and the audience know there is no illusion of control about this island, that the threat is paramount. The ethical question shifts from what we saw in the first film, as the right of people to tamper with life, to what we see here, the struggle of two different agendas. On the right side of that equation is the need to protect the animals and keep them out of harm’s way. The other side is the greedy disregard for what’s right- the desire to exploit and use the animals no matter the consequence. Hammond, who’s learned lessons the hard way, has gone from venture capitalist to environmentalist, lessons that his nephew doesn’t learn. I like that shift in the ethical side of the film. Aside from moving the narrative along, providing thrills, a measure of horror, and humour along the line, the story also grounds itself in relationship dynamics, and they’re best expressed in the relationships between Hammond and Ludlow, Kelly and Ian, and Sarah and Ian. Those are explored as the film goes along, though in the first case, only indirectly.

The special effects once more make dinosaurs come alive. We get the tyrannosaurus rex, the raptors, and a variety of other dinosaurs that seem to be sharing the screen with the actors as opposed to being a special effect. Full use is made of them, in a variety of ways- I love the way Spielberg sets up the scenes of raptors stalking a group of people running through tall grass- we see glimpses of the predators, their paths through the grass, a flash of their tails as they converge on their prey. And he doesn’t shy away from giving us full view of them either. 

The climax of the movie, with a Rex loose in San Diego, brings both terror and a sense of sly humour to it- and that beast certainly looks like it is alive and stomping around city streets late at night. Spielberg also brings back composer John Williams, who makes spare use of his previous themes and instead infuses dangerous, thrilling sounds into the score, with a hint of the jungle in the music.

The cast again is well chosen. Richard Attenborough appears only briefly as Hammond, who’s learned his lessons the hard way after the previous film. He seeks redemption for his earlier mistakes by safeguarding the island, and his intentions are at least better this time out- though he takes liberties in how he carries them out. Still, the character continues to come across as the kindly old grandfather. 

This is not the case for Arliss Howard as his nephew Peter Ludlow. The executive is a sneering, arrogant man, obnoxious and condescending, thoroughly unlikable and not as bright as he thinks he is. There’s a basic antagonism that he brings out in everyone- even the people working for him. Though the two characters never share a scene, there’s a sense that Ludlow holds his uncle Hammond in contempt. And for all his arrogance and bluster, deep down the character is a spineless excuse for a human being.

Vanessa Lee Chester as the stowaway daughter Kelly has the bulk of her interaction with Goldblum and Moore, filling the place of having a kid in the movie that Ariana Richards and Joseph Mazzello had in the first film. The relationship Kelly has with her father is somewhat tense- part of that is normal teenager stuff, the roll the eyes at whatever Dad says routine. Part of it is also the dynamic between them- her parents aren’t together, she feels her father doesn’t particularly want to be a dad. It’s a complicated relationship- she doesn’t understand that what’s driving Ian is keeping both her and Sarah safe; he of course has extensive experience with these animals, and knows how dangerous they can be. Actually Ian and Kelly have more in common than she realizes. Richard Schiff is good as the sardonic but capable logistics man Eddie Carr, who seems to have the right equipment for the right occasion, but isn’t really ready for what’s on the island until he sees dinosaurs with his own eyes. The character has a dry sense of humour, and while things end badly for him, he goes out working to save others, which is a nice touch. After this movie, Schiff went on to be one of the core cast members of The West Wing. Vince Vaughn plays the charming and somewhat idealistic Nick, bringing some of his motor-mouth personality to the role; this was an earlier role for him, and while I don’t mind the motor-mouth act in this film, it’s gotten tiresome in the years since as he’s pretty much kept using it. That said, however, Nick’s an interesting character, sarcastic but principled.

Pete Postlethwaite became better known later in his career to international audiences, particularly because of his outstanding work in the 1993 film In The Name Of The Father (far and away the best film of that year). Here he gets a really good role as Roland Tembo (what a name), a big game hunter who leads Ludlow’s team on the island. The character’s a boisterous, tough, and capable leader, a thoroughly dangerous man (one would not want to get into a fight with him). There’s something of a Captain Ahab to the man- he seeks the challenge of hunting a Tyrannosaurus Rex- and yet he can pull back from that hunt and let it go- a vital difference from Ahab. Where he ends up is a different place, personality wise, than where we first meet him. While he might work for the opposing side, he’s not unsympathetic, and we get to like him more as the film goes along. The character’s a force of nature, and Postlethwaite seems to be having a ball playing him.

Julianne Moore’s one of those actresses who could read the phone book and make it fascinating- she’s just that compelling and interesting in what she does. She’s resourceful, curious, and smart- and perhaps not wary enough of the dangers of the island until things go wrong. We believe her as an expert in the field- she seems entirely comfortable in her surroundings and carries herself with authority as you’d expect out of an experienced palaeontologist. Sarah’s relationship with Ian also feels real. The two have their disagreements, but have a lot of history, too, and for the most part seem to get along. Sarah’s touched that Ian’s come to rescue her, but adds that it would help if he did so on occasions when she could really use the help- such as a dinner with parents he missed. They’re not a perfect couple (who is?), but they seem grounded and real, and Moore plays to that, adding a sense of spirit and strength to her role.

Jeff Goldblum is fun once again as Ian Malcolm. He’s more cynical when we first meet him- having one’s academic career dismantled will do that. Having lived through the experience on the other island, he’s also the one character who understands the dangers the animals present. Try as he might to warn everyone around him, they don’t listen- until it’s too late. His motives are more personal this time out as well. While his ethical world view remains the same, his driving motivation is the safety of the woman he loves, and the daughter who thinks he doesn’t understand her. He might not go about how he deals with both in the right way, saying the wrong things at times, but we get what drives him, because like him, we know where this is going to end up- with lots of bloodshed and dinosaurs ripping people in half.

The Lost World was a fitting follow-up to Jurassic Park. Given that we already had the awe and majesty of the first film (before the chaos started), this film goes pretty much for the chaos, particularly in its second and third acts. It has a terrific cast, a good sense of humour, an adventurous spirit, and a fine way of driving up the tension.

This Is What You Get For Trusting Newman

With Jurassic World soon to show up in theatres, I thought I would review the first two films in the franchise here. This is the first, of course, and it's in fact a fresh review (looking at the tags, I've reviewed this movie before!) 

“John, the kind of control you’re attempting simply is... it’s not possible. If there’s anything the history of evolution has taught us it’s that life will not be contained. Life breaks free. It expands to new horizons and crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously, but, uh...well, there it is.” ~ Ian Malcolm

“God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs.” ~ Ian Malcolm 

“Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the earth.” ~ Ellie Sattler

“All major theme parks have delays. When they opened Disneyland in 1956, nothing worked.” ~ John Hammond  

“Yeah, but John, if the Pirates of the Caribbean break down, the pirates don’t eat the tourists.” ~ Ian Malcolm

“Well, the question is, how can you know anything about an extinct ecosystem? And therefore, how could you ever assume you can control it? You have plants in this building that are poisonous. You picked them because they look good. But they are aggressive living things that have no idea what century they’re living in, and they’ll defend themselves, violently if necessary.” ~ Ellie Sattler

“The world has just changed so radically, and we’re all running to catch up. I don’t want to jump to any conclusions, but look... dinosaurs and man, two species separated by 65 million years of evolution have just suddenly been thrown back into the mix together. How can we possibly have the slightest idea what to expect?” ~ Alan Grant

In 1993, director Steven Spielberg brought a big screen adaptation of Michael Crichton’s novel Jurassic Park to theatres, a film that got wide critical acclaim and huge box office appeal. The film brings visitors to a theme park island in the making, where cloned dinosaurs are the feature attraction, and of course things go badly wrong. With a wealth of special effects that looked convincingly real- the dinosaurs do in fact look like they’re occupying the same space as the human actors- the film was a landmark adventure tale that still managed to give us strongly written  and acted characters, and a story that grounded itself firmly in questions of ethics and science.

The film opens with a grisly death of a worker, though what it is that kills him is barely glimpsed. The park’s owner must bring in experts to sign off on the facility, and so John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) seeks out a paleontologist, Alan Grant (Sam Neill), and a paleobotonist, Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern). They’re on a dig when we first meet them, and they’re a couple. Hammond persuades them to come to his island for a weekend, holding back what the island contains, but eager to have them see what he has in store. Hammond has to deal with a company attorney, Gennaro (Martin Ferrero), who’s brought in a chaos-theorist mathematician, Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) as an opposing voice.

The group reach the island, where they see what lives there- and we see as well for the first time. Dinosaurs, alive and thriving, 65 million years after their extinction, live on the island. Hammond reveals his method for their resurrection at the visitor’s centre, which troubles all three academics, each of them bringing up grave concerns about the ethics of cloning dinosaurs. Hammond’s grandchildren Lexie (Ariana Richards) and Tim (Joseph Mazzello) are also present, and the experts and the children end up going out on a tour of the park in full. It doesn’t take long before things start to go wrong.

Crichton and David Koepp adapted the screenplay, which differs significantly from the novel in places, particularly in terms of character personalities and fates, also cutting down on the exposition Crichton was notorious for. The method of explaining the process, for instance, is presented in an animated film, which flows much better than having a scientist lecture at length about genetic cloning. And while the story is very much an adventure with thrills and laughs... it’s also grounded in the question of scientific debate over ethics. Mary Shelley wrote about the ethics of creating life in the wrong way two centuries ago, and the questions she brought up apply today in real life and in science fiction. It’s an examination that looms over this film, and the experts brought in to sign off on the park are the ones raising those concerns most strongly. Malcolm points out that Hammond’s team didn’t do all the work- they co-opted the work of others, stood on the shoulders of others, and ended up going through with this venture more because they were consumed with whether or not they could do it that they never stopped to ask if they should. Asking that kind of hard question ends up making for a compelling story, and the film never backs away from it.

Spielberg has a gift as a director for spectacle (something that’s not that uncommon with the Hammond character, who at heart is something of a showman). His crew in this film worked wonders, and it’s the special effects from that side of things that really stand out. When he made Jaws, he was beset with technical problems with the mechanical shark used for the film, and shot a good part of the film with mere glimpses or from the shark’s point of view to compensate- and thus drove up the tension until at last we saw the shark. Some of the same elements come into play here. We don’t see the raptors at first- they’re mentioned in passing by Grant to scare an obnoxious child at his dig site, and we hear them in a pen when they’re fed, but not seen until it’s the right moment to show them. The same applies to the tyrannosaurus rex, which we don’t see when first expected, and then finally seen in a big way in a rainstorm. It’s one hell of an entrance.

Back in the day, Ray Harryhausen spent most of his time doing stop-motion creature effects in many films, particularly dealing with mythology. He was good at what he did, but when you look at those films, you don’t really believe the hero is in the same space as that gigantic thing. Computerized special effects had advanced in the late 80s to the point where that was about to change. Take a look at James Cameron’s film The Abyss, for instance, and the otherworldly alien beings in that film look completely unlike anything you’d find on Earth- and yet appear to occupy the same space with the actors. The same applied with Cameron’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day, which featured a terminator who could change appearance and whose shape could form liquids and solid weapons- the CGI was so good that the threshold had been crossed; there was no sense of disconnect between actor and special effect. The same qualities came across in Jurassic Park- the dinosaurs look so real, seem to occupy the same space as the actors, and behave and move like living organisms.

Spielberg’s touches as a director are clear throughout the film. He’s gifted in adventure films in particular, and that comes across here, both in how he shoots the film (location shooting was done in Hawaii) and how the story progresses. He’s given to the occasional use of humour- casting Goldblum gives a lot of that, while the fate of the lawyer, while grisly, is rather amusing (particularly if you, like most people, hate lawyers). Another director might well have dropped the kids out of the story, though Spielberg keeps them (and they’re not annoying kids, like you might get if, oh, Haley Joel Osment or Macauley Culkin had been cast) in the story, something we’ve seen in a number of his films. He’s also given to scaring the audience on frequent occasions, the right thing in a movie with out of control dinosaurs. His frequent collaborator John Williams came back to compose the score, a mix of excitement, awe, and terror through the music.

The cast were all well chosen. Martin Ferrero might be a nice guy in person, but here he plays the attorney Gennaro as something of a spineless weasel, a lawyer who gives lawyers a bad name. The character’s not likable at all, only seeing in shades of dollar signs and liabilities.  Samuel L. Jackson wasn’t quite yet known at the time, but on the edge of stardom. He was cast as Ray Arnold, the chief engineer of the park, and he plays the role with cynicism and yet also a professional sensibility. Bob Peck plays the chief warden, Robert Muldoon, something of a precursor to Pete Postlethwaite’s character in the follow up film. Muldoon is a serious hunter with an instinct for the behaviour of the animals in the park, a no-nonsense tough character, and Peck certainly plays him that way. Wayne Knight, who’s known primarily for this role and as Newman on the Seinfeld series, plays computer expert Dennis Nedry as a pure weasel, a sarcastic opportunist out for himself. Nedry is an unpleasant person, and he gets what he deserves- he’s not unlike Knight’s other famous role. It’s a sharp contrast, for instance, to a character he played in Kenneth Branagh’s film noir Dead Again, in which he played a genuinely likable character.

The kids, as mentioned before, are not at all irritating. The script changed things between the two from the novel. Ariana Richards plays Lex as serious minded and interested in computers, the big sister who’s wise beyond her years. Joseph Mazzello gets to be the over talkative Tim, fascinated by dinosaurs (all kids generally are, but this boy seems to know everything about them. He’s curious to the point of obliviousness to risk. The two characters are good foils to Alan, who doesn’t particularly care for children (I can relate to that), and yet finds himself protecting them when things go terribly wrong in the park.

Richard Attenborough hadn’t acted in a film in years before this film came along, having had moved into directing instead. John Hammond is significantly different from the novel, in which he’s a callous businessman, and the film presents him as an amiable billionaire showman of sorts, big on dreams and oblivious to the ethical concerns about his project. He sees himself as a modern day Walt Disney, with ambitions for a theme park that’ll outdo anything before it. He’s so obsessed with the notion of the grand show that he doesn’t heed the warnings coming from others... but at least by film’s end, he’s learned a hard lesson. It’s a compelling character, this kindly old grandfather, and you can’t help but like him, even while shaking your head at his methods.

Jeff Goldblum gets some of the best lines of the film as Ian Malcolm. Hammond refers to him as a rock star instead of a scientist, and there’s something to that. The character’s cocky and has attitude. Ian is eccentric to say the least, a show off and a flirt. And yet beneath all that are solid principles and an ethical core. He voices his objections most strongly of the three experts brought in, and seems resolute in the face of danger. After a narrow escape from a rampaging tyrannosaurus rex, he asks if they might have that on the usual park tour. He delivers the line in a way that gets just the right reaction, something that occurs time and time again with his dialogue.

Laura Dern brings an innate curiousity to her role as Ellie. She’s a bright scientist with strong principles and a sense of humour, and even in the face of a situation going terribly wrong, she doesn’t panic. Ellie is a character who can take care of herself, and Dern plays to that. And her relationship with Alan seems grounded and real. These two love and respect each other (I have no idea why someone decided they should have broken up before the third film), and that shows itself in how they relate. They’re comfortable enough with each other to tease each other- Ellie saddling him with having the kids around when she knows he doesn’t care for kids is a good example.

Sam Neill gets the lead, and Alan’s a compelling character. He’s a bit gruff, doesn’t have much patience where kids are concerned, but also smart and is calm in the face of danger. Grant’s sense of ethics are strong too- like Ian and Ellie, he expresses grave concerns about the island and the notion of tampering with life itself. Put into life threatening peril, he comes into his own, showing how resourceful he is. And while he might have serious ethical concerns about the notion of cloning these animals, there’s also the enthusiastic side of him to actually be around these animals- his astonishment at seeing them for the first time and his reaction to being able to touch a triceratops convey that.

Jurassic Park set a new bar for adventure films when it came out. It’s a rousing adventure that still manages to bring forward questions of ethics when tampering with the building blocks of life. The film remains a pleasure to watch, giving the audience a hint of what it might be like to walk the same ground as a dinosaur.

Plus we get the distinct pleasure of seeing a dirtbag or two meet very bad ends.

From Captivity To Freedom: The Great Escape

“We have in effect put all our rotten eggs in one basket. And we intend to watch this basket very closely.” ~ Von Luger

“Colonel Von Luger, it is the sworn duty of all officers to try to escape. If they cannot escape, it is their sworn duty to cause the enemy to use an inordinate number of troops to guard them, and their sworn duty to harass the enemy to the best of their ability.” ~ Ramsey

“Afraid this tea’s pathetic. Must have used these wretched leaves about twenty times. It’s not that I mind so much. Tea without milk is so uncivilized.” ~ Blythe

“Blythe’s not blind while he’s with me. And he’s going with me.” ~ Hendley

“I haven’t seen Berlin yet, from the ground or the air, and I plan on doing both before the war is over.”  ~ Hilts

“If you’re asking me how far a commanding officer is allowed to go, or dare go, or should be permitted to play God, I can’t answer you.” ~ Bartlett 

The 1963 war drama The Great Escape adapts the story of the true escape of British and Commonwealth prisoners of war from Stalag Luft III, a German POW camp in what is now Poland, during the Second World War. Adapted from the book written by Paul Brickhill, one of the members of the escape, the film weaves together one of the best casts assembled for a film. While certain names are changed, other characters are composites of several people, and there are dramatic licenses taken (such as the fact that there were no Americans in the camp at the time of the breakout in reality), the film takes great care to present the details of the escape as accurately as possible. It comes from director John Sturges (The Magnificent Seven, Gunfight At the O.K. Corral, Hour Of The Gun).

In 1943, the most troublesome Allied prisoners of war are being brought to a newly constructed prison camp, headed by a Luftwaffe colonel, Von Luger (Hannes Messemer). He meets the largest group of arrivals personally, informing the senior commander, a British group captain named Ramsey (James Donald) that they should give up their attempts to escape. Among the early arrivals in the camp are two Americans,  Hendley (James Garner) and Hilts (Steve McQueen). British servicemen include Blythe (Donald Pleasence), Cavendish (Nigel Stock), Macdonald (Gordon Jackson), Ashley-Pitt (David McCallum), Ives (Angus Lennie) and William Dickes (John Leyton). The Australian Sedgwick (James Coburn) and a Polish pilot, Danny Velinski (Charles Bronson) are also among the early internees at the camp. An additional arrival turns up courtesy of the Gestapo, Roger Bartlett (Richard Attenborough), a British pilot with a reputation for masterminding multiple escapes and a chip on his shoulder where the Nazis are concerned.

The prisoners settle in after some first day escape attempts. Hilts and Ives get tossed into solitary confinement for their initial escapes and get to know each other during their time in what’s referred to as the cooler. Bartlett begins making plans to engineer a mass escape and takes stock of the particular skills of the prisoners within the camp. Some he knows, others he makes their acquaintance, and it’s his concept that leads to the digging of tunnels. Bartlett not only wants to escape- he wants to open a whole new front in the heart of occupied Europe and make life hell for the Germans.

The screenplay by James Clavell, W.R Burnett, and Walter Newman adapted the book recounting the events of the escape. They chose to make composites of certain real men while telling the story, as well as producing a screenplay that would be a star vehicle for some of the lead actors. There are aspects of the film that didn’t happen in real life. The fact that many of the prisoners were Canadian, for instance, is not touched on, and the nationalities of the three prisoners who did make it all the way to freedom were in fact Norwegian and Dutch. The sequences involving an airplane and a motorbike were also dramatic license for the story. The screenplay does honour the details of the escape by 76 POWs though, and grounds itself in strong characterization. There’s also humour added into the mix of the screenplay where appropriate, as well as the swinging back and forth between despair; while the ending might seem initially downcast, the very last moments of the film bring an optimistic tone of defiance and resilience that makes it work beautifully. We get to know the characters gradually as the film unfolds and as they get to know each other, and that’s one of the strengths of the screenplay.

Sturges filmed both on set and locations in Germany – the camp interiors and the tunnel sequences are all done on set, while the exteriors of the camp were erected near the studios. Local villages and towns also featured prominently in location shooting. The set construction by the crew particularly pays off- the interiors of the prison camp huts look as Spartan and of the time as you would expect, and the tunnels feel claustrophobic- very fitting considering one of the chief diggers is secretly terrified of closed in spaces. The exterior construction of the camp also has an accurate feel- it looks much like we would see in World War Two POW camps, barbed wire and all. The place has an oppressive, dreadful feel. The uniforms, props, and various other equipment are very much of the time, giving the film an authentic sense of time and place. Sturges also brought composer Elmer Bernstein in for the score. Bernstein, who had composed works such as The Ten Commandments, To Kill A Mockingbird, The Magnificent Seven, and Thoroughly Modern Millie among his many credits throughout his career, composed one of his finest scores for the film, with cues that mirror the themes of the film- oppression, defiance, hope, and exhilaration.

The casting is impeccable, one of the finest casts ever assembled. Hannes Messemer might be the commander of the camp, but he’s not unsympathetic as Von Luger. He’s a disciplined man, trying to keep a camp of POWs under control, trying to be cordial, all while not crossing the line. The actual man the character is based on survived the war, and the testimony of former POWs that he had treated them fairly and within the rules of the Geneva Conventions saw the officer freed. Von Luger doesn’t particularly seem that much of a believer in the Nazi ideology, starkly seen early on during his interaction with a Gestapo officer, who’s clearly a die-hard supporter. He also doesn’t care for the mistreatment of prisoners. He might be a hard man, but there’s an underlying decency in the man, and that’s what Messemer brings across in his performance.

Donald Pleasence gives his best career performance as the soft spoken and calm mannered British officer Colin Blythe, a detail oriented headquarters officer who by a trick of fate has ended up a POW. His skills make him a masterful forger, a vital skill for an escape attempt. Pleasence brought experience to the role, too- he spent a year during the war as a POW in a German camp. Blythe is tremendously sympathetic as a character; as the story unfolds and he faces an unexpected obstacle, Pleasence plays to that sympathy in his performance. Blythe and Hendley find themselves unlikely roommates, and gradually friends. One of the finest moments in the film is the decision Hendley makes to see Blythe out to freedom, and it speaks to the fact that they’ve become such good friends.

Charles Bronson also has the best performance in his career as Danny Velinski, the Polish pilot who is one of the two “tunnel kings” along with Dickes. The two characters are already friends, and do much of the advance work deep in the tunnels, which has involved frequent cave-ins as they’ve worked. Midway through the film, Danny reveals his deep fear of closed spaces to Dickes. It’s a crucial moment for the character and the actor (it seems Bronson had claustrophobia issues himself) as his desire to be free clashes with the fear, and his admission that he worries freezing up in the tunnel will put others in danger. Considering the actor later ended up getting known for playing a lot of tough guy roles, having him admit to a vulnerability that would be understandable to many people is a good measure.

James Donald had a tendency to play authority figures throughout his acting career on stage and screen. He was one of the featured players in The Bridge On The River Kwai, King Rat, and Lust For Life. He plays the senior officer Ramsey with the cool British reserve you would expect of the character. Ramsey is based on the actual senior officer in the camp, an experienced escaper who didn’t take part in the escape and yet had to be briefed in on what was going on. Ramsey comes across as calm under pressure, a steady leader, somewhat pragmatic and with less of a chip on his shoulder than Bartlett where the Germans are concerned.

James Coburn as Sedgwick is one of the quiet pleasures of the film, a charming Aussie who’s the chief manufacturer in the escape attempt. The character’s capable and resourceful, making use of whatever supplies can come his way to aid in the escape. And he shows resilience and calm under pressure as the film unfolds- out on the run and on his own, he shows wisdom in the choices he makes, and takes things in stride when a rather startling event unfolds around him.

Richard Attenborough became well known to audiences in North America because of his role as Big X, aka Roger Bartlett, based on the real mastermind of the breakout. Bartlett is ambitious in his plans for the escape, a resolute leader, decisive, organized, and someone who pays close attention to detail. He also bears a grudge against the Germans, who haven’t been appreciative of his previous escapes, and there’s the sense that the character is out for some payback as much as he wants to get to freedom. He’s not as calm as Ramsey, but we can believe the character as a leader of men.

James Garner is one of the great treats of the film, a charming scoundrel whose skill is at scrounging for the needs of the escape. A skilled pickpocket or negotiator, Hendley is gifted at smuggling what needs to be smuggled, charming, easygoing, and a good liar. The audience might suspect he’d be a pretty good used car salesman- but under the charm is strongly held principle and integrity (which of course would disqualify him from that job). His decision before the escape to help Blythe reach freedom is a clear mark of how decent Hendley is, and Garner plays these qualities throughout the film.

This film solidified Steve McQueen’s status as a superstar in the world of film, and it’s a compelling, tremendously likeable character. Hilts is based on more than one pilot, and is a defiant and irreverent man. When he’s not breaking out of the camp during earlier attempts, he’s an irritant to Von Luger and the guards in general. Of course he ends up spending a good deal of time in the cooler, but solitary confinement doesn’t break his spirit, it just strengthens his resolve. Events lead him to consider the benefits of the larger escape attempt and play a pivotal role in it, and once on the outside, Hilts finds himself on the run, with trouble circling in from all sides. The character is a standout in a film filled with standout performances.

The Great Escape is one of those classic films that never gets old with repeated viewings. Its characters have depth and complexity, and it’s not all black and white as a POW film- the jailer is not entirely without sympathy. The film has a good sense of humour, paces itself well, lets us get to know these men, and then unleashes them in a bid for freedom. While the events that play out don’t go according to plan, there is still resilience in the spirit of the men, and the result is a rousing, tremendously satisfying film. It is a personal favourite film, and a true classic.