User Reviews

"The Great Escape" is an amazing film but what also is amazing is the accompanying extra bonus DVD. It contains a HUGE number of very good documentaries--including four mini-documentaries which could have just as easily been one long documentary. I suspect it was split up mostly to make people think 'wow...look at all the special features!'--but they didn't need to, because there WERE a lot of great special features either way!

This final part of the four is NOT what I expected. With a title like "A Standing Ovation", I expected the film to be about the critical and public response to the original release of "The Great Escape"--which it was not. Instead, it's about the actual aftermath following WWII--when the British did their best to locate and punish everyone responsible for murdering 50 of the escapees AFTER they'd already been captured. You see people visiting the memorial to the men and it's quite sad...but also very well done. Well worth seeing.

Great Escape, The: A Standing Ovation (2001)

*** (out of 4)

The fourth part of this documentary series can be found on MGM's Special Edition release of THE GREAT ESCAPE. This portion of the series talks about the response once the movie was finally released as well as its reputation in regards to being one of the greatest war pictures ever made. The most interesting aspect was getting to hear from the actual POWs who all gave their stamp of approval even if certain aspects of the story were changed. It's also quite clear that the critics and fans loved the movie the day it was released and that love has grown even more over the years. As one of the POWs said, even if there was only a fraction of the film that was the truth at least the story would reach people. In their words, in a day when there aren't too many heroes its good to be able to look back at this film and see some.