Great Escape, The: Bringing Fact to Fiction (2001)
** 1/2 (out of 4)
When MGM finally got around to delivering a Special Edition for THE GREAT ESCAPE, a four-part documentary was made and this is the first part. We start off hearing a few facts about the original escape and how director John Sturges spent years trying to get the rights. Once he did get the rights he couldn't find a studio willing to make the picture until after THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN became a hit and MGM finally green lit the project. Burt Reynalds narrates with John Weir (camp escapee), Alex Cassie (camp escapee), Jonathan Vance (author), Robert Relya and Arthur Duand are among the people interviewed. For the most part this is a fairly lackluster document because you really don't get to know too much. Yes, what stories are told are fascinating but at the same time you simply don't get that much information. The most interesting stories is about how they wanted to get the camp to look authentic and what they did to get this done. The start of the documentary starts off talking about how they had to add certain aspects of fiction to complete the movie but even here they don't go into much detail.