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Group Capt. Ramsey: Colonel Von Luger, it is the sworn duty of all officers to try to escape. If they can't, 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.
Col. Von Luger: Yes I know. The men under your authority have been most successful. This man, Ahsley-Pitt for example. Caught in the North Sea, escaped, recaptured, escaped, recaptured. Archibald "Archie" Ives: 11 escape attempts. He even tried to jump out of the truck coming here. Dickes, William: known to have paticipated in the digging of 11 escape tunnels. Flight Lieutenant Willinski: four escape attempts. MacDonald: nine, Hendley, the American: five, Haynes: four, Sedgewick: seven. The list is almost endless. One man here has made 17 attempted escapes. Group Captain, this is close to insanity.
Group Capt. Ramsey: Quite.
Col. Von Luger: And it must stop!
Trivia
The actor Steve McQueen was no stranger to "cooler life"; he had a criminal record as a youth and while in the US Marines spent 41 days in the brig. See more...
The Great Escape (1963) - 45 mistakes
Directed by John Sturges, starring Charles Bronson, David McCallum, Donald Pleasence, James Coburn, James Garner, Richard Attenborough, Steve McQueen (add more)
Factual error: As Steve McQueen is making his 'great escape', he drives his motorcycle through a gap which a chasing motorcycle and sidecar can't squeeze through, so it crashes. Cut to a crane shot of the retreating McQueen racing into the distance. Keep your eye on the left of frame and into view, on top of a building, is a distinctly un-1940s TV aerial. It's there for a full 7 seconds.
Continuity: In the scene where Hilts is first locked in the cooler, he is eventually let out. It shows him walking out from a view that is inside the cooler, and his coat is on one arm (I forget which arm it is). Then it shows a view from outside of the cooler,of him walking out, and his jacket is on the other arm. He didn't switch it while walking, because the clip is about 2 seconds long.






