"The Great Escape" Part 2

[00:00:00] Speaker A: From a barbed wire camp to a barbed wire country. We are the Spy Fi Guys, and this is the Great Escape Part 2. Welcome to the Spy Fi Guys. So I apologize to the universe for that. [00:00:15] Speaker B: Yes. [00:00:16] Speaker A: Wow. Justice for Denison. [00:00:19] Speaker B: Is it though? [00:00:21] Speaker A: I laughed and then I hated myself for laughing. [00:00:25] Speaker B: Foreign. [00:00:30] Speaker A: Welcome back to the Spy Fi Guys. Recover Spy Facts, Spy fiction, and everything in between. I am Zach. [00:00:36] Speaker B: And I'm Christian. [00:00:37] Speaker A: And we are back with part two of the classic World War II escape movie called the Great Escape. [00:00:45] Speaker B: A little on the nose with the [00:00:46] Speaker A: title there, by the way, something I forgot to ask you for part one. For those of you who haven't listened to part one, please tune in. Did you ever go to the Great Escape when you were a kid? Did they have those? [00:00:56] Speaker B: What is the Great Escape? [00:00:57] Speaker A: You know what I'm talking about? [00:00:57] Speaker B: Nope. [00:00:58] Speaker A: It's like an indoor playground with giant, like, netting things where you climb through nets way off the ground. I don't know. Maybe they're just in, like, the northeast, maybe. [00:01:09] Speaker B: So what we had was similar called Discovery Zone. That's what we had one of those in Hawaii. So same idea. But, yes, I did go to that. [00:01:17] Speaker A: Okay, so yeah, if you were a kid, you have a birthday party there and everyone loves it. [00:01:22] Speaker B: Mm. [00:01:23] Speaker A: It's like a more wholesome Chuck E. Cheese because it's more like a playground and less video games. [00:01:27] Speaker B: Yeah. The other thing that when I think of the Great Escape, there's a song, I think. Oh, what? Yeah. What year was that from? Must have been like 2009, 2010 by the band Boys Like Girls. It's called the Great Escape. [00:01:41] Speaker A: Never heard of it. I'm out of touch, though. [00:01:43] Speaker B: Hold on, let me look it up. When did come out? 2007. Yeah. From boys Like Girls. Yeah. Good song. Maybe we'll add it to one of our reels on Instagram with this. [00:01:53] Speaker A: Okay, nice. So with that in mind, should we jump into the Great Escape Part 2 plot synopsis? [00:02:04] Speaker B: Sure. Do you have a poetry synopsis for part two? [00:02:07] Speaker A: I do. Part two is quite different from part one, so I was able to get some good stuff. So first we have the haiku for the Great Escape, Part 2. Wandering around, impatient guy blows the op. Ooh, endless bike racing. [00:02:27] Speaker B: All right, all right, I like it. [00:02:28] Speaker A: I think that pretty much summarizes it. But then here is the limerick as well. The tunnels and papers are nifty. To escape they'll have to be shifty. But Flint and his trunk put them all in a funk and the crew ended up losing 50. [00:02:40] Speaker B: You blaming Flint for this? [00:02:41] Speaker A: Yes, I am. Yes, I am. [00:02:43] Speaker B: I don't blame Flint, but we'll get to it. [00:02:46] Speaker A: You blame the impatient guy. [00:02:48] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:02:48] Speaker C: Okay. [00:02:49] Speaker A: Well, I don't know. So anyway. And then here is the real IMDb plot summary. I know we did it in part one, but here it is again. Allied officers in a German prisoner of war camp during World War II make a daring escape. Daring plan for a mass escape by hundreds of POWs, hoping to draw German personnel and resources away from combat operation. [00:03:07] Speaker B: Alrighty. So part two. We start with the camp at night. Hiltz has agreed to make an escape to gather all the needed information and then get recaptured. So he's making his escape. He cuts through the wires. Soldiers the next day are inspecting the fence that he cut through. [00:03:26] Speaker A: Wait, wasn't it in the same blind spot in part one? [00:03:29] Speaker B: So he managed, even though, you know, they knew that's where he got out. He. They apparently just did nothing to actually get it, you know, to fix that vulnerability. [00:03:41] Speaker A: Well, you mean the part where he stands there. Yeah, with the baseball. Maybe they just didn't figure it out, because, as you may recall, in part one, I was like, how is it a blind spot that they just turn their head and look, but then it showed them with searchlights? So I guess somebody at night figured out it was a blind spot at night. [00:03:56] Speaker B: There's more digging, folks. They're worried about the collapse. I, like, there's a human chain, you know, bringing all the bags. Yeah. And Hiltz gets captured again, is sent back to the cooler. There's some more ball throwing. [00:04:12] Speaker A: Yeah, but I thought this part was cool, actually, because someone says to someone else, they didn't capture him. He turned himself in. [00:04:18] Speaker B: No, the line was, he wasn't caught. [00:04:20] Speaker A: Yeah, he wasn't caught. Well, the implication is he turned himself in. Oh, yeah. Then they tossed him the baseball, and everyone's like, yeah, that was cool. It was a good start. [00:04:28] Speaker B: Yeah. So they're more digging. Danny gets buried in a collapse, but he's all right. But he. He's definitely a bit shaken. [00:04:35] Speaker A: That's right. [00:04:36] Speaker B: We see that one of the Foragers has made a mistake and then left out a whole eagle in their fake papers. And as Blythe, AKA Blofeld, is looking at the, you know, the fakes, his vision starts getting blurry. Is his eyesight going. I was worried, like, was there something in the ink that was poisonous that caused. Causing him to lose his eyesight? Was it intentional poisoning? Is. I was like, what's going on? [00:04:59] Speaker A: Well, yeah, probably too many Spy movies there. But I thought it was the working on the little details that was going in blind, but apparently not because he says later that his close up vision is okay. It's everything else that's the problem. [00:05:12] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, sometimes that just. Just happens. So I like this practice checkpoint that people are going through, they giving their papers, and they're speaking their German. And then it's a tricky thing, you know, one of. I forget who falls for it, but one of them falls for it where the checkpoint guys, you know, speaks in German and then says, oh, your German's pretty good in English. Is it? Oh, thanks. And then realizes, nope, I'm not supposed to know English. [00:05:37] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. And they're really good at German. Like a bunch of them we see later speak German. Like you can't even tell. [00:05:45] Speaker B: But yeah. So Danny is done. He wants. He's done with it. He's. We find out he's actually claustrophobic. [00:05:54] Speaker A: He's cracking up. [00:05:55] Speaker B: Yeah. And he wants to get out through the wire, the same place that Hiltz has got out. His friend stops him saying, no, no, we're almost there. He needs to push through. And he. He also kind of sounds like he wants to, like, suicide by guard as well. [00:06:12] Speaker A: It does kind of come off that way. Did you ever watch the Pacific? [00:06:14] Speaker B: The season of the Band of the Brothers? It's been on my list. That and Masters of the Air. Yeah. [00:06:19] Speaker A: I haven't seen Masters of the Air. I can't really recommend the Pacific because it's not nearly as good. It's way more violent and just generally a drag. But I was reminded of this because there's a part where one of the Marines goes crazy and just starts screaming. And they're like, he's giving away our position. So they end up killing him. [00:06:39] Speaker B: Oh, geez. [00:06:40] Speaker A: In order to keep him quiet. And Rami Malek says, better him than all of us. [00:06:44] Speaker B: But Rami Malek's in that. [00:06:45] Speaker A: Yeah. Yes. He's like a crazy, like, PTSD Marine who doesn't care about anything. [00:06:52] Speaker B: Oh, wow. All right, okay. Interesting. Yeah. But his friend, who I don't remember this guy's name. There's. I am shocked that I remembered so many of the names. I had to also have to go back to this guy's name. I have no idea, is Danny's friend. It says, you know, I'll be with you. I'll get you through that tunnel. Don't worry. [00:07:10] Speaker A: That's nice. [00:07:11] Speaker B: Yeah. So Bartlett, AKA Big X, goes to see Blythe and Henley, AKA Blofeld and guy who steals all the things for them, the scrounger. [00:07:21] Speaker A: The scrounger, yeah. [00:07:22] Speaker B: Henley. Yeah. And he tells Bartlett, tells Blythe that he can't go, and he's trying. Blythe tries to play it off and, you know, with. Says, you know, what, if I was blind, could I see this pin right here? Picks it up. [00:07:36] Speaker A: I mean, you noticed that he rigged it, right? [00:07:38] Speaker B: Oh, no, that was. That was definitely a trick. Yeah, he knows the setup. [00:07:42] Speaker A: He's pretty smart. [00:07:43] Speaker B: But then I like how Bartlett's, you know, says, oh, well, you know, come over here. Can you grab me something over there? And sticks out his leg. [00:07:52] Speaker A: Yeah, he's one step at him. So who do you think is right? Chris John, obviously. Bartlett. [00:07:58] Speaker B: Yeah, he's definitely right. He. They. Yeah, he's a liability. You can't have someone blind on an escape. [00:08:06] Speaker A: Well, what's crazy to me is that he can go, but he should be at the end of the line, right? And he's clearly not. We learn later, but I think that's because it's a character that we follow. [00:08:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:08:17] Speaker A: There's also an interesting discussion here where the scrounger says, I'm not gonna sabotage and run around. I'm just gonna go home. And Big X disagrees with him about that. So it's another, like, moral dilemma. [00:08:29] Speaker B: What do you do? So Bart or Hilts gets out of the cooler, and someone says, bartlett's waiting for you. I was like, oh, and we're going tonight. [00:08:37] Speaker A: So. Yeah, it must have been a huge time jump. Yeah, it must have been months that they were digging that other tunnel that we just don't see it. [00:08:43] Speaker B: Yeah. Which I'm glad I don't need. [00:08:47] Speaker A: Yeah. It's, like, enough of the tunneling, so [00:08:50] Speaker B: I'm glad that they did that. And then we get the watchtower. We see one of the watchtowers shining a spotlight. And we see folks outside in their new clothes, like, sneaking around. They got their new clothes in their papers. Everyone's going into one hut, and there's checking people, checking folks off of the lists, start going into the tunnels. And Danny goes in, has a panic attack, right? And so he, like, gets out. Bartlett is going down the tunnel on one of their carts. So, like, that's pretty fast. It's pretty. Pretty good idea. [00:09:27] Speaker A: But it's still slow because it's one [00:09:29] Speaker B: guy at a time. True, true. So Hilts as the first guy, and he starts to dig upwards at the end and shows Bartlett, you know, the grass. [00:09:39] Speaker A: He's like, pokes out it's kind of funny. [00:09:42] Speaker B: More folks coming into the tunnel, but we find out that they're 20ft short of the trees. [00:09:48] Speaker A: Man. What an interesting question now, because they say, let's just call it off. And they say, no, all the documents are dated to today. [00:09:54] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:09:55] Speaker A: Boy, like, that was crazy too. Because how did they know how long it would take to like the exact day? More or less. [00:10:03] Speaker B: I mean, I feel like they're probably estimating so. And they probably also have to estimate how long they've far they've actually been digging too. So that. Which is probably some combination of art. I know I'm six feet tall, so I'm going to stand in kind of thing. [00:10:17] Speaker A: Yeah. Or you'd use a rope. [00:10:19] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah. [00:10:21] Speaker A: It was still kind of. I guess if they were 10ft further would have probably made a huge difference, as it turns out. [00:10:26] Speaker B: So I'm trying to remember. There's an episode of Young Indiana Jones Chronicles where he's in a prison camp and they do an escape. And I feel like they're 10ft short there too. Or something like that. Like that. Which has to be a reference. Or is. I'm either thinking of this or I don't remember. I don't know how you. What? Let me start at the end. I don't know how well you remember Red Tails. [00:10:47] Speaker A: Red Tails. Not super well. [00:10:49] Speaker B: Okay. Well, one of the characters who gets down, like gets. Ends up in a prisoner escape camp or prison camp and they do an escape as well. I think they tunnel as well there too. But I'm trying to. If it was Young Indiana Jones or if it was this where they're like. It was definitely a reference to the Great Escape. One of those two. I don't know. I'll. Now I kind of want to watch both again just to see, but. So Hilt just says we're going to set up. He's going to go out and scout it and set up a rope so that, you know, he'll pull on the rope when it's clear. [00:11:21] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, it makes sense. [00:11:22] Speaker B: That's a good idea. [00:11:22] Speaker A: Apparently this wasn't so clear to me, but I guess guards are walking around and he pulls it when they're not nearby and then the searchlights are all inside. So he really just has to worry about the wandering guards. [00:11:34] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Danny's being motivated by his friend. All right, let's go. You can do it. You can do it. So they. A bunch of people get up before Danny gets out. They hear a siren. [00:11:43] Speaker A: Yeah. There's also a Part where Flint. I just call him Flint. He has a giant trunk and they're all giving him a hard time about it. [00:11:50] Speaker B: Yep. Yeah. Yeah. And it's not a siren. It's not a warning saying that it's an escape attempt. It's an air raid. [00:11:58] Speaker A: Yeah. How lucky? Sort of. But it turns off the lights in the tunnel. But they can escape because all the lights are off and they won't be able to see them. [00:12:04] Speaker B: Yeah, they turn off when there's an air raid. They turn off all the lights in the camp. Lights go off. Danny starts panicking when the lights go off. So they light some oil lamps that they had set up. Which is a good idea just because the actual electric lights go out. I didn't even think. I was like, how are they. How are they not noticing that there's a power drain? But I guess, you know, World War II, there's not really. [00:12:24] Speaker A: Yeah, they don't have computers. And can you imagine those lights really draw that much power? [00:12:29] Speaker B: Fair enough. [00:12:29] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:12:30] Speaker B: But, yeah. So more folks are coming out. Hilton's helping. And the lights come back on. Bartland and McDonald, you know, realize that, oh, if we don't leave now, we're not going to make the trains. So they go out and they said they'll pass the instructions man to man. Because they were the ones who were giving everyone instructions on when to go. [00:12:46] Speaker A: Right. So do you think the last guy just didn't get the instructions or he was just impatient? [00:12:50] Speaker B: He was just impatient. Like, I'm wondering, like, if Bartlett was still in there, would they. [00:12:56] Speaker A: Yeah, maybe not. Maybe he would have said, stop, stop, stop. [00:12:58] Speaker B: Yeah, probably. Probably. But. Yeah. So one of them. Well, this is. [00:13:04] Speaker A: Why is this Flint? [00:13:06] Speaker B: Oh, I forgot. This was Flint. [00:13:08] Speaker A: He has a trunk. And the trunk is so big that he, like, drops it and it makes a sound and he falls on. Or maybe he trips. [00:13:14] Speaker B: Well, I don't. I don't think that was Flint. [00:13:16] Speaker A: Yes, it was the guy who falls flat. [00:13:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:13:20] Speaker A: The guard is, like, panning the light. Was that flint 100 flint in his trunk? Yes. [00:13:24] Speaker B: I want to rewind the tape. Okay. [00:13:25] Speaker A: Yeah, go and watch the tape. [00:13:28] Speaker B: One second. No, it's not Flint. There's a guy with a fedora already. Yeah. No, that's not Flint. He's got a fedora on. Ah. [00:13:38] Speaker A: But he does have a big trunk. Right? [00:13:39] Speaker B: He has a big box. [00:13:42] Speaker A: Whatever. [00:13:42] Speaker B: You know how if you're, like, moving and. Or you're chipping something and you put, like, tape, like, twine around it so you have something to grab Onto it wasn't Flint. See, you can't blame Flint. [00:13:56] Speaker A: Okay? So whatever. So I. Whoever that guy is, I blame him. [00:14:01] Speaker B: Okay. That's fair one. But I also blame the guy behind him. Yeah. [00:14:06] Speaker A: By the way, this is where I start to remember the movie. [00:14:09] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay. [00:14:10] Speaker A: Like, I remember the guy popping out and getting caught. And then I will tell you the other things I remember. [00:14:15] Speaker B: So what I like here, though, is it the tension is really built because I'm like, you know, the guy is looking. You got his flash. And he's looking into the trees and, you know, which is where Hilts and McDonald and Bartlett are. And I didn't realize that. Oh. That the guy who gets. Who made the noise is at. Literally at his feet. Yeah. He's, like, right there. Like, he could almost step on him. And. [00:14:41] Speaker A: Yeah, something I appreciate about these older movies is they don't need to do, like, the tension music. Like. [00:14:47] Speaker B: No, instead they do, like a. More so they kind of feel like, yeah. But. Yeah. And so the. The guy who I blame, who's behind him is, like, getting impatient. He's waiting for Hilts to pull on the target on the rope. And he's like, no, come on, come on, come on. Doesn't wait. Gets caught. And this is where. Yeah, this is where Hilt shouts, don't shoot. As like, to distract the guard. And the guard, like, shoots. And I was like, wait, did yo just get shot? Because it seemed like he wasn't that far. [00:15:18] Speaker A: She'd said, the tree line. Yeah. Yeah, I guess. [00:15:21] Speaker B: Yeah. And then the impatient guy, also, she, like, ends up saying, don't shoot. And he gets caught. And they, like, realize where the tunnel is. Every. Everyone. Yeah, everyone else who was in line behind them gets, you know, gets caught. And there's a head count the next day, and apparently 76 folks got out. [00:15:42] Speaker A: Yeah. And there's still 45 minutes left in the movie. So what's going to happen? [00:15:48] Speaker B: Yeah, so we see McDonald and Bartlett at train station. There's a few other folks. There's Ilya Kuryakin, a couple of things. [00:15:55] Speaker A: There's good music at this part in the train station. This bugged me. It doesn't make a lot of sense. I don't understand. Well, they say a lot of people who escaped are here at the train station. And why aren't they caught? How many train stations could possibly be within walking distance of this prison camp? And it's hours later because the sun is up. Like, I don't know. Are the Germans, like, stupid? Like, if I were running the camp I would say, okay, send some guys to the train station, because, you know, that's what they're gonna go, right? [00:16:25] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't know about that. That's a good question. I. I have no defense for it on that. That's interesting. I didn't think about that. But, yeah, we also see Henley and Blythe and. Yeah, they all. So thing is, they don't actually. They all missed the train, like, because it was an early train in the morning. So there's other folks who actually made it on the train. [00:16:46] Speaker A: There's a great part where they get on the train, they make this SS guy move his legs. [00:16:50] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [00:16:50] Speaker A: Talk about ballsy. I also think it's funny, when they sit down, they say mercy, like, without any kind of French accent at all. It reminded me of Brad Pitt and saying, Arriva Darcy and Inglorious Basket. [00:17:03] Speaker B: Buongiorno. [00:17:05] Speaker A: Yeah, they don't fall for it at all. [00:17:06] Speaker B: So, yes, that was. Yeah. McDonald and Bartlett sit right across from the Nazis for the SS guys. And then Flint finds a bike. It's locked, but he uses his wire clippers to, you know, get through the fence to. To lock. And then rides away. [00:17:24] Speaker A: Good thing he had that giant trunk full of all the stuff that he needs. That was another thing I remembered, was the guy on the bike. But I remembered him bicycling and then I didn't remember anything else, so I thought he just bicycled his way out of the country. [00:17:36] Speaker B: Yep. And then we have a hilt setting up a trip wire to get a motorcycle. [00:17:40] Speaker A: How did he know a motorcycle was going to come? Like, what if a giant truck came and just snapped his line? [00:17:46] Speaker B: Then he sets up another line. [00:17:48] Speaker A: Okay. I suppose so. [00:17:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:17:52] Speaker A: People hitchhiking on a truck. We have people using a rowboat. [00:17:56] Speaker B: Danny and his friend are on the rowboat. Yeah. And then there's a, you know, Nazi inspection on the train. So far, everyone passes except for Blythe and Henley. See it, and they get to the back of the train and jump off the train. Terrain. [00:18:09] Speaker A: Yeah, that was pretty sweet. Really good. Those Old Timey movies have, like, good stunts, right? [00:18:14] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:18:14] Speaker A: Cgi, actually. [00:18:16] Speaker B: So if you want to train stunts, like old time. You see train stunts. Well, I know there's like a couple of, like, really old ones. I think it's the General I haven't seen, but. Yeah, but I think it's called. Oh. Oh, no, now I've forgotten what it's called. It's a Sean Connery and Donald Sutherland. Oh, the. The. The First Great Train Robbery. And there's scenes where, you know, Connery is running on top of a train. And because of the time it's made in, you know, it's real. And it was really Connery riding on top of that train. I'm like, wow. [00:18:53] Speaker A: Something else about the train part is it has the thing I hate in World War II movies where the Nazi looks at the paper and looks at. Oh, yeah. And looks at the paper again. But it wasn't with the music. And they didn't draw it out. So it didn't bother me as much. Especially did a good job where he was just kind of like, here we go. [00:19:09] Speaker B: Whatever we see, we go to the folks who are not on the train. Hilts sees the Swiss border but then drives up to a bunch of Nazis and he's in a Nazi uniform that he, you know, that he'd stolen. Very Indiana Jones. [00:19:24] Speaker A: But clearly he doesn't speak no German. [00:19:26] Speaker B: He's not one of the folks who could. Who speaks. So he, you know, one of them calls over to him and he drives over and then punches the guy and makes a run for it. And there's a nice motorcycle chase. [00:19:37] Speaker A: Yeah. And this is why they have checkpoints all over Nazi Germany for exactly a situation like this, as it turns out. [00:19:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:46] Speaker A: My next note is Flint is a hobo. He gets onto a box car. Really? Seems like he knows what he's doing. He's like, totally. He never runs into any problems. [00:19:57] Speaker B: What is Flint's actual name? I know we're calling him Flint. What's the actor's name? [00:20:02] Speaker A: Well, the actor's name is James Coburn. [00:20:04] Speaker B: That's right. [00:20:05] Speaker A: And his name in the movie, according to IMDb is Sedgwick. [00:20:09] Speaker B: That's right. He's Sedgwick. [00:20:10] Speaker A: Manufacturer. [00:20:12] Speaker B: But we're just gonna call him flint. Bartlett and MacDonald get off the train. Ilya almost gets spotted by a Nazi. But then the Nazi. And this is one of the ones from the camp, I guess. [00:20:23] Speaker A: So this confused me. I had to go back and rewind that because I didn't understand what was happening. And to be fair, they do say earlier, oh, Bartlett, everyone knows who you are. You're infamous, so you're gonna get recognized. Which is exactly what happens. [00:20:35] Speaker B: Yeah. The Nazi spots Bartlett, but Ilya attacks the Nazi so that Bartlett can get away and, like, runs off. And then he gets shot. [00:20:43] Speaker A: So I thought. What do you think he says, Bartlett. And then Ilya runs over and he has a gun in his jacket and shoots. I thought he shot himself to prevent something from happening. I Don't know, like it was some kind of secret counter spy or any something like that. I guess Ilya just uses his gun on him. [00:21:01] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that's what happened. We have Cavendish. I don't even remember actually getting caught. And he brought into like the SS building. [00:21:09] Speaker A: Oh, okay. [00:21:10] Speaker B: And they're threatened to charge him as a spy. Hey, see Spy movie. [00:21:13] Speaker A: Yeah, see, there you go. And the guy is like a Hans Gruber. He even kind of looks like Hans Gruber. And I thought it was scary because the guy was like, if you're in civilian cloak, that means you're a spy and we could just kill you. On the other hand, there's got to be some kind of consequence, right? You know, like Hilts goes into the cooler. But this is extreme. Oh, yeah, People better die. Which is exactly what happens. [00:21:34] Speaker B: Guys, ss, are they Gestapo? [00:21:36] Speaker A: I don't know. [00:21:37] Speaker B: One of the two. Yeah, not sure. Actually, no, I think it is the Gestapo. Because we'll find out later on. Yeah, this. But then we see that Blythe and Henley are still on the run. They're trying to get out by plane. And this is where we bring in our special guest, zj. [00:21:54] Speaker A: If only that happened. [00:21:55] Speaker B: Just kidding. See, you know, I was like, as soon as there's such happens, like. Well, we need ZJ here to tell us all about these planes and why they're wrong. [00:22:03] Speaker A: I thought it was a trainer plane because a lot of the cool planes that you see in museums are the ones that survived the war. And that's because they're trainers. [00:22:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:11] Speaker A: Otherwise they get shot down, but yeah. [00:22:12] Speaker B: So Henley goes to knock out a guard and then gets in the plane and Blythe cranks the engine. [00:22:20] Speaker A: So do you know what this reminded me of, by the way? [00:22:22] Speaker B: Indiana Jones. [00:22:23] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. [00:22:24] Speaker B: Wait, Raiders or Last Crusade? [00:22:26] Speaker A: I mean, yeah, Raiders, where the guys are guarding a plane and then he punches out a guy and then he has his sidekick start the plane up. [00:22:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:34] Speaker A: So I liked it. It was cool. [00:22:35] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, yeah, I like that. And the guards spot them and I was wondering, are they gonna have like, you know, anti aircraft miss. Or anti aircraft weapons shooting at them or something? But they managed to take off and next stop, Switzerland. [00:22:50] Speaker A: Yeah. So there's a part now where Hilt goes to a barn, stops at the barn, even though they're chasing him on bikes. And. [00:22:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I wasn't sure what was going on with this. [00:23:00] Speaker A: Well, do you remember later, it shows him motorcycling away from the barn and there was giant swastikas on the Side of the barn. [00:23:06] Speaker B: Do you notice that? I did not notice that. [00:23:07] Speaker A: I can rewind the tape if you really care enough. [00:23:09] Speaker B: No, no. This one I don't really. [00:23:11] Speaker A: I was like, I just don't understand. And I didn't bother to look it up because I didn't care that much. But I guess he. I guess the idea is he hid in the barn for a while and then tried to leave again. [00:23:21] Speaker B: Took off his SS or his Nazi uniform. [00:23:24] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. [00:23:28] Speaker B: And. Yeah, but he gets ahead of them again. And then we go back to Henley and Blythe, and there's engine failure on the plane, and they're losing power. [00:23:37] Speaker A: This seems like the kind of thing that would happen in a movie, but it also seems like the kind of thing that would happen in real life, too. Things go wrong for all sorts of. [00:23:44] Speaker B: They start going down pretty quickly, but they have a surprisingly soft landing for a crash. [00:23:49] Speaker A: Did you ever see 1917? [00:23:51] Speaker B: No. Oh, yes. Yes, I did. [00:23:53] Speaker A: Do you remember the part where they're hanging out in the barn and then suddenly a plane crashes right on top of them? Oh, yeah. That's what this reminds me of. [00:24:01] Speaker B: But, yeah, they, like, crash and go right between two trees and rip the wings off. And Henley sends Blythe off to, you know. You know, you get. Get the safety. But instead the Nazis find them, and Blythe is shot and Henley's captured. [00:24:17] Speaker A: So I think the implication here is that he shot because he's blind. Like, he couldn't tell what was happening, maybe. [00:24:23] Speaker B: Yeah, Because. [00:24:24] Speaker A: Because Henley says to somebody later, like, yeah, I shouldn't have taken him. Roger was right. [00:24:29] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. So Hilts is still on the run. There's barbed wire fence. There's two sets of barbed wire fences blocking his paths. The Nazis are enclosed, starting to enclose him. So, yes, he managed to jump over one set. And this is the famous. You know, the. The jump that everyone knows about. The Great Escape. [00:24:49] Speaker A: This felt like a video game for some reason. Like, why would these fences even be there? I don't know. [00:24:55] Speaker B: For this reason. [00:24:58] Speaker A: It's a barbed wire country. [00:24:59] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. But then he crashes into the other one and is caught in the barbed wire. Like, as soon as that happened, like, ah, that's gotta. [00:25:06] Speaker A: Yeah, that's no good. Ouch. [00:25:09] Speaker B: Yeah. And we cut back over to Flint, who's at a cafe where. Sitting down. And some Nazis sit down, too. And the waiters tell him that he's got. They've got a telephone call for him. Is that for me? He goes over. I like this. [00:25:24] Speaker A: I thought he was gonna get caught. [00:25:26] Speaker B: Yeah. But then as soon as he picks up the phone, he's. Hello? Hello. The wait staff ducks. Like, doesn't even duck behind them. It's slowly just sort of get behind the bar. [00:25:35] Speaker A: They do what the Coldplay CEO did, where they just go over the camera. [00:25:39] Speaker B: Then Flint noticed that he, like, gets behind the bar, too. And then this random car come, drives by, shoots the Nazis, and he realizes that there is the resistance. [00:25:51] Speaker A: Yeah. It's a drive by shooting. [00:25:53] Speaker B: And they can help get Flint out. He's trying to get to Spain. [00:25:57] Speaker A: Yeah. He's, like, the luckiest guy in all of Germany. [00:25:59] Speaker B: Also, do we know he is. Is he actually Australian, or was he just saying he's Australian? I think he. I think he was actually Australian. But he's a, you know, in the British Army. [00:26:09] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. [00:26:10] Speaker B: Yeah. With zero Australian accent at all. [00:26:15] Speaker A: Yeah. Something funny about this part is they speak a lot of French with no subtitles. [00:26:19] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So Bartlett and McDonald are getting on a bus. There's an inspection. Inspection again. This is where they get the French. And McDonald gets tripped up by someone speaking English. He says, good luck. He's like, thanks. And as they're running away. Ramsey. [00:26:39] Speaker A: Sorry. This cool part where Roger bluffs out the Germans by speaking German. [00:26:43] Speaker B: Yeah. But before that, also, Ramsay runs in. Like, as they're running, he runs into a guy on a bike. And I thought he was gonna, like, get on the bike and go off, but he doesn't, and he gets captured. [00:26:54] Speaker A: You should have taken the bike. Like, grand theft Auto. [00:26:57] Speaker B: And Bartlett is, like, running over rooftops. But, yeah, I did like that. How he, like, managed to escape. He said no. You know, says that they're asking, you know, they think it. He said, no, I'm German. And his accent's pretty good. And he gets away, breathes a sigh of relief, has a newspaper, and is leaning against, like, a telephone booth. But right behind him is one of the Nazis. Recognizes him. [00:27:22] Speaker A: This guy is like, boss energy, like, main villain energy. But I don't think we've ever seen him before. [00:27:29] Speaker B: Yeah. Bartlett and the rest of the folks who are captured are in trucks and they're being brought back to the camp. Bartlett makes an illusion that, like, I either thought it would either be shot or we'd be sent somewhere else. I'm surprised. We're getting sent back to the camp. But then the truck stops, and they're told to get out because, you know, to stretch their legs because it's a long drive. And I immediately got suspicious. How about you. [00:27:56] Speaker A: Well, this was a part. I remember. [00:27:57] Speaker B: You remember that? Okay. [00:27:58] Speaker A: Yeah. One of the few. [00:27:59] Speaker B: And so Bartlett and I think it was McDonald. McDonald are talking, and then you see a gun brought out, and they all get executed. [00:28:08] Speaker A: Unfortunately, they don't show you the gory details. It just shows the gun going off. [00:28:12] Speaker B: I think that was well done, actually. You don't. You don't necessarily need it. [00:28:15] Speaker A: Oh. That's how you know. [00:28:16] Speaker B: It's an old movie, but, yeah. So the commandant of the camp tells Ramsay, who is like, their liaison to the. To the. To the men, that 11 men are returning and that 50 were shot while escaping. [00:28:32] Speaker A: And I like when the guy says, well, how many were wounded? And he's like, none of them. Yeah. [00:28:37] Speaker B: And the commandant doesn't seem very happy about this either. He's not happy that they all got shot. [00:28:42] Speaker A: Well, remember, he's the good Nazi from before when he doesn't Heil Hitler enough. [00:28:48] Speaker B: Yeah. And so they read out the names of the dead. And this point, I'm, like, wondering, was Hilts captured? Well, we knew he's captured, but I don't remember seeing him in the truck. And we don't necessarily really see everyone in the trucks. Like, was he one of the ones executed? I'm like. I'm waiting for his name to be read. [00:29:05] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, it turns out later that he survived it. [00:29:08] Speaker B: Yeah. But then we also see Danny and his friend still rowing, and they managed to get onto a boat where they're gonna. They're gonna stow away. We see Flint with the Resistance being guided to Spain. And then Hilts is brought back to the camp in another car. We find out the commandant is no longer in charge and he's sent off with the Gestapo. [00:29:34] Speaker A: Yeah. And he says something like, it looks like Hiltz will go to Berlin. Before he does, do you think the idea is he's gonna get killed? [00:29:41] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. [00:29:42] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:29:43] Speaker B: And then Hilts is sent back to the cooler. Someone tosses him his ball in his mitt, and there's oddly cheerful music for 50 of them. I know, but it's just like. It's a mood whiplash for, you know, 50 of these guys just die. [00:29:58] Speaker A: Yeah. You could have changed the music. It wouldn't have killed anybody. Before the movie ends, okay, there's a conversation. Hilt says to some guy, you know, how many got killed? And I don't think they explicitly say, but the question is implied. Was it worth it? [00:30:14] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. That's. [00:30:15] Speaker A: What do you think? [00:30:16] Speaker B: I think. Well, that's a question. That's A question of, you know, the whole purpose of this is to divert resources from somewhere else. Gestapo was devoting resources to catching these guys as opposed to doing something somewhere else. So did that save American and Allied lives somewhere else? Maybe. We don't know. [00:30:39] Speaker A: I mean from what I could see in the movie, it didn't feel like it was worth it to me. I mean I don't claim to know much anything about military stuff, but I feel like these guys are rear echelon. So they're either chasing prisoners or not doing anything. Like I highly doubt they pulled people off the front lines to go look and chase Steve McQueen around in a motorcycle for a few hours. [00:30:59] Speaker B: I don't know. There was a bunch of them. So maybe they would pull them not, not off the front lines lines, but maybe they pulled them off of hunting off out the actual resistance in that area because we see them going, doing fine. So maybe because of that, maybe it helped the resistance or helped kept them from actually subjugating the native population of where are we actually? [00:31:22] Speaker A: Yeah, I think the whole thing takes place in Germany. [00:31:24] Speaker B: Oh wow. [00:31:26] Speaker A: So there you go. [00:31:26] Speaker B: But then why are they speaking French? [00:31:27] Speaker A: Yeah, well that's a good point. I guess it's in France then. [00:31:31] Speaker B: Yeah. So we get an end title that says this picture is dedicated to the 50. [00:31:37] Speaker A: I like that. [00:31:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:38] Speaker A: Nice. [00:31:39] Speaker B: And with that, our movie ends. [00:31:42] Speaker A: Spy Fact versus Spy Fiction. Okay, so now it is time for our Spy Fact versus Fiction. [00:31:51] Speaker B: All right, I've just got one thing so I'll do mine first. [00:31:54] Speaker A: Okay. [00:31:54] Speaker B: And mine is about Hiltz's jacket. [00:31:58] Speaker A: Uh huh. Well you commented on the jacket in [00:32:00] Speaker B: part one, so let's talk a bit more about it. So this is the A2 flight jacket. Now he wear. It's a. He doesn't wear an authentic one. He means make wears a reproduction jacket that was made for the film. The type is a rough wear 22 752. The company is based, you know, based out of Middletown, Pennsylvania and actually did manufacture A2s during the war. Now the one that Hilts has, it's got in his insignia, the blue Hap Arnold emblem of the U.S. army Air Forces on his. On the shoulder and then over the left breast is a tan leather strip with V Hilts stamped on it. So his name starts with a V apparently. But his is much more fitted than a standard one. Now I have one of. I have a replica A2 jacket that I like a lot. But I don't look anywhere near as good as Hilts does in his. [00:32:58] Speaker A: Are you going to get it tailored. [00:32:59] Speaker B: No, I mean, well, it's leather. It's kind of hard to tailor that. But I mean, it fits well for me. I'm just saying Steve McQueen's a badass and I can't claim to look anywhere as good as he does in his jacket. [00:33:09] Speaker A: So I don't dress up for conventions as much as I used to. But a few years ago, you may remember this, my siblings and I dressed as lower decks uniforms. And my sister was actually the mastermind behind the whole thing. And she found it. They sell Chinese replica ones relatively cheap. But she. She said the reason why most costumes at conventions don't look good is because they're not fitted. [00:33:34] Speaker B: No, no. Yeah. [00:33:35] Speaker A: So she's like, yeah, gotta find a tailor and, like, get it altered. I just went to my local Korean dry cleaners. Sure. [00:33:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:33:42] Speaker A: That was under the building where I lived. And I wouldn't say it looks, like, amazing on me, but it looks better [00:33:48] Speaker B: than it otherwise would. Oh, yeah. And then that's good for like, yeah, costume leather jackets, a little harder to do that. All this stuff you don't want to pay for, you know, out the nose for. But yeah, that's what I got because I think I said all my other stuff in episode two about. Or episode one about who the actual cooler king was and all that. And all the information I got was from BAM, BAMFstyle.com which is a great website, all about, like, film clothing in film. So I highly suggest you check it out if you're at all interested in clothing and film. [00:34:22] Speaker A: Okay, nice. All right, so I'm going to go big with mine. I have warhistory online dot com. [00:34:28] Speaker B: All right. [00:34:29] Speaker A: The Great Escape. Harrowing Truth versus Hollywood Fiction by Colin Fraser. In general, the movie is pretty accurate. Okay, so it says it's based on a POW camp in Silencia, which was done in Germany called Stalag Luft 3. And it's pretty accurate. The film was shot in Germany, but in Bavaria. [00:34:48] Speaker B: Okay. [00:34:49] Speaker A: Several of the actual prisoners were used as technical advisors for the film, and they asked the producers not to include details of help that they received from gift packages from their home country. [00:35:01] Speaker B: Oh, why? [00:35:03] Speaker A: The reason is not to compromise escape attempts from any possible future POW situations. [00:35:08] Speaker B: Interesting. Okay. [00:35:10] Speaker A: Yeah, of course, this was before the Internet existed. Now you can just look it up and say that things become a lot less secret. And of course, if you made a movie like that now, they would not keep that a secret. They would just go ahead and do it. [00:35:22] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:35:24] Speaker A: So the inspiration for Danny Valinsky, the Tunnel King was former Royal Canadian Air Force pilot Wally Floody. [00:35:33] Speaker B: Okay. [00:35:33] Speaker A: Okay. And he was a technical advisor to the film. And that's where they got a lot of those details, including the hand operated air pump. They got that the actual camp held over 1800 prisoners, 600 of which worked on the tunnels from over a dozen different countries. And one of the biggest things that was not accurate in the movie was there was a greater variety of nationalities. [00:35:59] Speaker B: Okay. [00:36:00] Speaker A: Yeah. The U.S. officers were not involved. They helped make the escape happen, but they weren't there. They'd been transferred elsewhere before it actually happened. [00:36:08] Speaker B: Okay. [00:36:10] Speaker A: And there were also, like, Norwegians and various other people. So there was a real big ex. His real name was Roger Bushell. [00:36:17] Speaker B: Okay. [00:36:18] Speaker A: And he escaped German custody twice. He had escaped German custody twice since being captured in 1940. And he was the head of the group. Did you notice he had, like, a scar on his eye? [00:36:29] Speaker B: I did. Which is funny that I was like, there's a Blofeld in this movie and he's not the one with a scar on his eye. [00:36:35] Speaker A: Yeah, well, the scar is on the wrong side of his face. And the reason it was there is from a skiing accident from before the war. [00:36:42] Speaker B: Okay. [00:36:43] Speaker A: So, yeah. After 76 prisoners escape in the movie, 73 are recaptured and only three escape in real life. [00:36:51] Speaker B: Oh, wow. Okay. [00:36:52] Speaker A: And they are British, Polish and Australian in the film, but were Norwegian and Dutch in real life. And like in the movie, 50 were shot under different circumstances. And let's see, the movie depicts the German commandant as visibly upset and ashamed. And it is true that he said that the killing of the escapees was horrific. And he allowed the men to still. He allowed the men who were still there to build a memorial for their comrades, which still stands there today. [00:37:20] Speaker B: Oh, okay. [00:37:21] Speaker A: All right. And that is what I have for spy fact versus fiction. All right, favorite quotes. All right, next we have favorite quotes. There weren't a lot. This one didn't have as much talking as part one. So I guess I can go first, though. [00:37:42] Speaker B: Sure, sure. [00:37:42] Speaker A: There's a part where Danny says, I hide the fear, and I dig. I thought that was a cool line. Usually I like the funny lines, but this time I like the cool ones. And there's a part where they're leaving in the tunnel and somebody says, see you in Piccadilly. And then finally, in the Indiana Jones part, Henley says, when the engine catches, don't move or you'll get a mouthful of propeller. [00:38:05] Speaker B: That's right. That's good, scary stuff. Yeah. I think we've talked about all three of the ones I had. But I'll say them anyways. Flint with his giant steamer trunk. And then as he's going down the tunnel, someone says, what the hell have you got in there? A piano? [00:38:20] Speaker A: We would want to know, you know, [00:38:22] Speaker B: when Hilts comes back, is captured again, and someone says, you know, surprised that he got captured, you know, quickly. And the other guy says he wasn't caught. [00:38:34] Speaker A: Yeah, that was cool. I like that part, too. [00:38:36] Speaker B: And then finally, I've got. From the commandant. You know, it looks as if you will see Berlin before I do. [00:38:43] Speaker A: Yeah, we did. We did talk about that. So another cool line. Ratings. All right. And now it's time for our ratings. On a scale of 1 to 10 martinis, 1 being Avengers 1998 level bad, and 10 being even better than Mission Impossible, Ghost Protocol, how would we rate the Great Escape as a whole? [00:39:05] Speaker B: As a whole. All right. [00:39:07] Speaker A: Yeah, I guess I can go first. [00:39:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:39:09] Speaker A: I always mean to write down the pros and cons, and I always forget, so I guess I have to go off the cuff. So the pros are. I like how accurate it is. And considering how long it is and how old it is, it's not that boring, though. It is a lot of Steve McQueen driving and driving and driving and driving. And the characters are just good enough. They're interesting that you want to follow them, but it's just. I don't know. There's just something that's holding me back. I think it's just such a straightforward story with not a lot of twists and turns. The beginning actually was better because they have one attempt and then it fails and then another attempt and things go up, things go down. And we had that, too. Like, some people escape and some people don't. Yeah, it was good. I'm going to bump it up a little bit. [00:40:00] Speaker B: Okay. [00:40:00] Speaker A: I say it's very good. I will give it a seven and a half. [00:40:03] Speaker B: All right. So that's where you actually rated Part one. [00:40:07] Speaker A: Really? Okay, good. Well, it's pretty consistent in that case. I mean, Part two is very different from Part one. It's just them kind of running around. But that's good, actually. There's a variety in the movie. It actually reminds me of a Bollywood movie. Funny enough, they're very long, but the story moves such that you don't always feel it. Like, things change. Same with this one. [00:40:30] Speaker B: So I. Looking back, I gave Part one an eight out of ten martinis, and I'm gonna stick with that. I. I think I liked it maybe a little bit more. Than you, but not by. I mean, I, I, I. This is a straightforward film, but we don't always get many of those on the spy fi, guys, we usually have a lot of twists and turns, so it's kind of fun to just have one that's just sort of very straightforward. And, you know, there's no hidden villains or hidden spies or anything, but it's a, you know, story of human perseverance, really. [00:41:02] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. [00:41:03] Speaker B: And yeah, I, I, I enjoyed. I, I've been wanting to watch more things with Steve McQueen in them. I've seen the original Thomas Crown Affair with him in it, and I liked it, but I kind of like the Brosnan one more for different reasons. Not because of Steve McQueen, but just story reasons. So. And then I've been wanting to see this. I want to see There's a Bullet, which apparently has, like, some of the best car chases. And there's also a good. [00:41:30] Speaker A: He. [00:41:30] Speaker B: He liked to drive, too. So he. There's a, Like a Le Mans F1. Not fol. A Le Mans car racing movie with him that I want to see as well. But, yeah, but I enjoyed it. And, you know, a lot of times we've talked about this when we have these big, epic, you know, true stories like, say, the Longest Day or Tora Tora Tora. And it's all a bunch of white dudes who I can't tell from each other. And I appreciate this one was. Even though it was supposed to be accurate, you know, it wasn't, like, dragged down by. All right, we have to introduce this one person because of this one scene or anything like that. [00:42:13] Speaker A: Like in Tora. [00:42:13] Speaker B: Tora Toro, so. Or. Yeah, so I appreciate it. It's another adaptation. Even though all the things happened in it, you know, people. Characters got condensed and combined so that it still felt like a movie and not a documentary. So I really appreciated that. Good. But, yeah, so I had a lot of fun. I would watch it again. Yeah, I would. [00:42:34] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a classic for a reason. And, yeah, the characters could have been more diverse, but you can still mostly tell them apart. [00:42:41] Speaker B: Yeah, Yeah. I mean, it's more of a. I couldn't keep track of everyone's names. I'd start writing them down. But, yeah. [00:42:46] Speaker A: Yeah, I appreciate how if it were more like a fictional movie, the characters would be very exaggerated. Like, there'd be the funny guy and the serious guy and the crazy guy and the leader guy. [00:42:58] Speaker B: Well, it's funny you say that, but, like, in the credits, they're all got, like, their nicknames and things of all right, this is the Scrounger, this is the intelligence, this is, you know, Big X and this guy. [00:43:10] Speaker A: All right, anything else to say about Great Escape? [00:43:13] Speaker B: No, just if you haven't seen it, I would highly recommend watching it. [00:43:17] Speaker A: It's actually free on YouTube right now, so you have no excuse. [00:43:20] Speaker B: There you go. [00:43:21] Speaker A: All right, well, thank you all for joining us. You can find us on social media at the Spy Fi Guys on Facebook, Blue Sky, YouTube and Instagram and our merch [email protected] until next time. I'm Zach. [00:43:32] Speaker B: And I'm Christian and we are the [00:43:34] Speaker A: Spy Fi Guys signing off. [00:43:39] Speaker B: Thank you for listening to the Spy Fi Guys. If you enjoyed our podcast, please sure to give us a five star rating on itunes. The theme song from this podcast is Mistake the getaway by Kevin McLeod from Incompetech.com licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 3.0 Films, Books and television shows reviewed by our podcast are the intellectual property of their respective copyright holders and no infringement is intended. [00:44:06] Speaker C: This is a personal podcast. Any views, statements or opinions expressed in the this podcast are personal and belong solely to the participants. They do not represent those of people, institutions, or organizations that the participants may or may not be associated with in a professional or personal capacity. Unless explicitly stated, any views or opinions are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company or individual. [00:44:31] Speaker B: You can find our podcast on social media at the Spy Fi guys on Facebook, Bluesky, YouTube, and Instagram.