Here’s one you might remember. I certainly do:

Fans of the movie “The Great Escape” (and I must confess that I am one, big-time) will recognize the above as the Fourth of July celebration scene, featuring the incomparable Steve McQueen playing the flute and James Garner with the drum.

Anyone who hasn’t already seen the classic 1963 action movie should rent it immediately and settle in with some popcorn for the long haul. I was a teenage girl in 1963 when I first saw it on the widescreen, a stirring combination of male pulchritude (not a female in the cast, and what a cast!), suspense, wit, ingenuity, and tragedy. It’s long, but not overlong, and the score is memorable as well.

Although the film’s script merges a number of real people into single characters, and takes a few liberties with time (and invents the fabulous motorcycle chase in which McQueen gets to strut his formidable stuff), it’s historically accurate in the extreme, especially for a Hollywood flick. Oliver Stone, it ain’t–fortunately.

The makers of the film were dedicated to making it as true to actual events as possible. The screenwriter had been a prisoner of war in a Japanese camp, and a former prisoner and expert tunneler from the prison camp depicted in the movie worked as an adviser to the director. Follow the link to read just how much of the film was actually true to life.

Donald Pleasence, who played the rapidly-going-blind forger Blyth, had been a prisoner of war in a German camp. Hannes Messemer, the German actor who managed to bring an extraordinary humanity to the role of the Kommandant of the camp (a person who in real life was apparently well-liked and respected by the prisoners), had been a prisoner of war in a Russian camp, as had several of the other German actors in the film (these facts are to be found here).

“The Great Escape” was one of the first films I ever saw that defied my sanguine expectations. There was so much humor in it, so many likeable characters, and so much Hollywood-type action that I assumed it would likewise have a Hollywood-type ending, in which all turned out well. It doesn’t.

But the Fourth of July scene is delightful. And I wish you all—wherever you are and whatever you choose to do to celebrate today—a wonderful Fourth.

[NOTE: This is a slightly edited version of a post that appeared here in 2005.]