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"The Great Escape" Part 1 · The Spy-Fi Guys

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Put a fence in front of these men and they'll climb it. We are the Spy Fi Guys, and this is the Great Escape, Part 1.
• 0:12
  Speaker B: Welcome to the Spy Fi Guys. So I apologize to the universe for that.
• 0:18
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 0:19
  Speaker B: Wow. Justice for Dennis M. Is it though? I laughed and then I hated myself for laughing.
• 0:28
  Speaker A: Foreign. Welcome to the Spy Fi guys, where it covers spy facts, spy fiction, and everything in between. I'm Christian.
• 0:40
  Speaker B: And I'm Zach.
• 0:41
  Speaker A: And today we have a World War II classic movie, the Great Escape. Have you seen this before, Zach?
• 0:48
  Speaker B: Back to World War II. I can't believe we're back to World War II, but thank God it's not a traditional spy World War II movie.
• 0:55
  Speaker A: Although I. I will say it feels weird talking about World War II without ZJ here.
• 1:01
  Speaker B: It does, doesn't it? But it's not what he's into. He's into planes and ships and tanks like that.
• 1:10
  Speaker A: And so far we have none of those. Although it's mentioned some of a bunch of these are like RAF or Army Air Force pilots.
• 1:18
  Speaker B: Correct. So to answer your question, I have seen this movie before.
• 1:21
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 1:22
  Speaker B: How much of it did I remember? Is a good question.
• 1:25
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 1:25
  Speaker B: And I remember bits and pieces of it. I actually realized we're covering the first half this time. Most of the things I remember is from the second half.
• 1:35
  Speaker A: Okay. Okay.
• 1:36
  Speaker B: What I remember the most is the music. The song, the theme song which I thought was Hitler Only has One Ball. The song. Do you know that song?
• 1:44
  Speaker A: No.
• 1:45
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 1:45
  Speaker A: And I'm going to need a story.
• 1:47
  Speaker B: Well, it's a World War II song and I know it because they play it in the show the man in the High Castle, also on Amazon, which is where we watch this. And it goes, hitler has only got one ball. Goring has two, but very small. Himmler is rather similar balls has no balls at all. Clap, clap. So it sounds similar to the greatest kids.
• 2:11
  Speaker A: You know where I've heard that tune?
• 2:14
  Speaker B: Where?
• 2:14
  Speaker A: That's what the. In Spaceballs. The Jawa esque creatures who are. Who are on the planet with yogurt on it and they're hummed at.
• 2:22
  Speaker B: I wonder if it's a tune that existed before the song.
• 2:25
  Speaker A: I assume it was hearing it. Vanna Brooks is also the kind of guy who might use that kind of tune if it was with that origin. Just to put it in there.
• 2:33
  Speaker B: Yeah. There you go. So I remember the music and I remember them digging the tunnels, but I didn't remember any of the characters or any of the actors besides Steve McQueen.
• 2:43
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 2:43
  Speaker B: How about you?
• 2:44
  Speaker A: I've Never seen this before. I've held out on watching it because I figured we covered on the podcast, so I want to let go in blind.
• 2:52
  Speaker B: Okay, There you go. Plot, synopsis.
• 3:01
  Speaker A: Alrighty. So do we have our poetry and synopses?
• 3:05
  Speaker B: Yeah. So even though we put this together a kind of short notice, I did finish steal some inspiration to do poetry.
• 3:12
  Speaker A: All right, so is this for the full movie or just the part one?
• 3:16
  Speaker B: Well, I mean, I've only seen part one, and I guess we'll see if I want to do part two.
• 3:21
  Speaker A: Yeah, I think so. I think so.
• 3:22
  Speaker B: I'll see. I'll see if I get inspired.
• 3:23
  Speaker A: So.
• 3:24
  Speaker B: So here's the haiku for the Great Escape, Part 1. Dirt in the trousers. Independence Day goes wrong. Better start digging.
• 3:34
  Speaker A: All right, all right. I like it. I like it.
• 3:36
  Speaker B: Usually I watch the movies pretty far in advance, but this time I finished it less than an hour ago.
• 3:41
  Speaker A: Wow. So it's fresh. Fresh in your mind.
• 3:43
  Speaker B: Yeah. The cliffhanger midpoint ending is fresh in the memory. So here is the limerick as well. There once were some stuck British flyers. They are experienced escapees and liars. They sing Christmas carols and learn to draw sparrows but soon they'll be kicking the tires.
• 4:00
  Speaker A: I like it. All right.
• 4:01
  Speaker B: Thank you. And then here is the real IMDb plot summary. Allied officers in a German prisoner of war camp during World War II make a daring plan for a mass escape by hundreds of POWs, hoping to draw German personnel and resources away from combat operations. I didn't remember it. Which was they weren't really intending on actually escaping. It was just to mess with the Germans.
• 4:24
  Speaker A: It's in. Yeah. Yeah. Which I didn't. It was interesting. But we'll get to that when we get there.
• 4:30
  Speaker B: Yeah. And by the way, something else kind of funny. As the director of this movie, I have never heard of the director. Maybe you have.
• 4:36
  Speaker A: Let's see.
• 4:37
  Speaker B: His name is John Sturges.
• 4:40
  Speaker A: Sounds familiar. What else has he directed?
• 4:43
  Speaker B: Well, I don't know, but my wife and I've been watching Young Sheldon.
• 4:47
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 4:48
  Speaker B: Created by Chuck Lorre, who we discussed all the way back in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. And one of the characters is named John Sturgis.
• 4:57
  Speaker A: Okay, interesting.
• 4:58
  Speaker B: So I wonder if it's a reference to that.
• 5:00
  Speaker A: Could be. Let's see. Let me see if. What else he's directed. Well, there you go. The Magnificent Seven.
• 5:05
  Speaker B: Wow. Nice.
• 5:06
  Speaker A: Yeah, I. Zebra. Yeah, A lot. A lot of stuff. Anything that I've actually seen? I don't think there's anything they've actually seen.
• 5:14
  Speaker B: But, yeah, I've seen Ice Station Zebra because it has my boy Patrick McGoohan in it. I can't say I recommend it, though. It's pretty slow. So the opening credits, a lot of names we know. Besides Steve McQueen.
• 5:27
  Speaker A: I was gonna say. I got. Who.
• 5:28
  Speaker B: Who did you pick out first?
• 5:29
  Speaker A: Okay. I got Donald Pleasance. Know that name?
• 5:32
  Speaker B: Of course I do. How dare you?
• 5:34
  Speaker A: Well, okay. Do you know him from what? From the.
• 5:37
  Speaker B: Besides, from Blofeld.
• 5:38
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 5:39
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 5:39
  Speaker A: All right. That was. He's in what? The Exorcist, isn't he?
• 5:42
  Speaker B: Yeah, he's in stuff. I mean, come on. I can't do a spy podcast and not know who Donald Pleasance is.
• 5:47
  Speaker A: Just checking. All right, and then James Coburn, who we covered in. In Like Flint.
• 5:52
  Speaker B: He has a Mo Howard haircut in this movie, at least in the beginning.
• 5:56
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah. David McCallum, aka Ilya. One of the men from Uncle.
• 6:01
  Speaker B: Mm, correct. Correct.
• 6:02
  Speaker A: Richard Attenborough. What's his face from Jurassic Park.
• 6:06
  Speaker B: Yeah, I don't recognize him when he doesn't have that big beard and isn't puffy, by the way. Richard Attenborough. I don't know if we talked about this, but he's also in Joseph in the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
• 6:14
  Speaker A: As who?
• 6:16
  Speaker B: As Jacob, the father. Huh.
• 6:19
  Speaker A: I've never caught that. Did he have the beard?
• 6:23
  Speaker B: Yes. It's not white, though. I think it's more brown. Or maybe it is. I don't know. It's been a while since I've seen it. But aside from that in Jurassic Park.
• 6:31
  Speaker A: That's it. Yeah. All right. Any other names that you cut?
• 6:34
  Speaker B: Yes, the screenplay is by James Clavell. Do you know James Clavell?
• 6:38
  Speaker A: As in the. He wrote Hawaii. That book?
• 6:41
  Speaker B: Yes. He also wrote Shogun and Shogun and a lot of stuff he wrote.
• 6:47
  Speaker A: There's a. What is the one. There's a Hong Kong one. Noble House, I think, is the. Is the. Is the miniseries starring Pierce Brosnan Based on the 1981 novel by James Clavell?
• 7:01
  Speaker B: Yeah, he wrote a ton of books.
• 7:03
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Speaking of Shogun, I need to watch that show and the original movie. But the show I've heard is really good.
• 7:09
  Speaker B: So I've read the book, but I haven't seen the show or the movie. I just think I've seen parts of the movie a long time ago, but, yeah, it hasn't made it onto the TV schedule.
• 7:18
  Speaker A: Noble House is fun with Pierce Bros. It's Pierce Brosnan being Pierce Brosnan, so of course it's fun. Yeah, I didn't realize that. James Clavell.
• 7:26
  Speaker B: Interesting.
• 7:27
  Speaker A: I think this is one of the most unique. You know, this is a true story.
• 7:30
  Speaker B: Right.
• 7:31
  Speaker A: Things. This is a true story. Although the characters are composites of real men and the time and place have been compressed, every detail of the escape is exactly the way it happened. Or is it. Every detail of the escape is the way it really happened, which is good, at least.
• 7:46
  Speaker B: So far in the first half, they haven't done anything that is. Stretches beyond the bounds of credibility, even though it is pretty amazing.
• 7:54
  Speaker A: So, yeah, we started off with these trucks that are holding prisoners. Then they bring them to the. I don't have down what the name of the prison is, do you? It's like something three. There is a name. Stalagluft three.
• 8:06
  Speaker B: Okay. Similar to Stalag 17.
• 8:10
  Speaker A: I don't know. And I don't. I do not understand that reference.
• 8:15
  Speaker B: It's a movie called Starlight 17. I don't know anything about it. I think it's D O W. Yeah.
• 8:20
  Speaker A: Well, then probably. But yeah. So the trucks unload and we meet many. The. Many, many white characters.
• 8:28
  Speaker B: That's correct.
• 8:30
  Speaker A: Many, many white men. Yes. It's one of those movies.
• 8:32
  Speaker B: It is.
• 8:33
  Speaker A: And one of them is already starting about talking about starting a tunnel. We get our first glimpse of the cooler. Cooler King, aka what's his actual name?
• 8:43
  Speaker B: Steve McQueen.
• 8:43
  Speaker A: Hilts, played by Steve McQueen.
• 8:46
  Speaker B: I love how in the first hour of being there, a bunch of people jump into trucks and things like that.
• 8:51
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 8:51
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's pretty funny.
• 8:53
  Speaker A: We also meet the senior British officer, Group Commander Ramsay, who is made the liaison between the commandant of the camp and the prisoners. And we find out that this particular bunch of prisoners have had many, many attempts at escape.
• 9:08
  Speaker B: Correct.
• 9:09
  Speaker A: And that this is a new camp that was especially built to be inescapable.
• 9:13
  Speaker B: There's a part where he goes through the names.
• 9:15
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 9:15
  Speaker B: The commandant is saying a bunch of names, and we don't recognize them. But there's a part, and this made me wonder, and they explain it later, where they say, this guy escaped, recaptured, escape, recaptured. And I'm like, how bad is this guy of fighting a war that he gets captured three times? But then I was like, okay, so he escapes from the camp. He wanders around Germany for a while, until eventually they pick him up again. It's not like he goes back to the war.
• 9:37
  Speaker A: No.
• 9:38
  Speaker B: No Fights the war, gets captured again. I mean, I'm sure there are stories where that happened, but not.
• 9:42
  Speaker A: But no, yeah, this is definitely. They. They didn't get far enough, which is why later on, we'll find out that they really need maps and identity papers and all these things actually escape fully. I like here. There's also a bit where the German soldiers at telling this guy's like, how come you. He's an American. He's like, how come you're fighting with your enemies? What do you mean, our enemies? The Brits. They burned down your capital in 1818.
• 10:05
  Speaker B: Whenever in 1812.
• 10:08
  Speaker A: And the American is like, no, I don't think that ever happened. That's propaganda.
• 10:12
  Speaker B: Yeah. The American's response to that is not. That was a long time ago.
• 10:15
  Speaker A: Right.
• 10:16
  Speaker B: That's just what you. You think he would say, as opposed to you guys who are bombing us right now.
• 10:22
  Speaker A: Right. And then the cooler king is looking around and looking pretty cool. I. I will say that. A1. I believe it's a. A1 flight jacket. I have one of those. Looks real cool. It's like, more fitted than an actual A1 is, like, to make him look even cooler.
• 10:40
  Speaker B: Well, he is Steve McQueen.
• 10:41
  Speaker A: I know, right?
• 10:42
  Speaker B: And he's an American, not a British.
• 10:46
  Speaker A: And then we get a glimpse of these Russian prisoners who are, you know, being used to cut down trees. And so we get our first sort of big distraction. A bunch of the prisoners put on a show like they're having a fight, and a couple of the Brits try to blend into the Russians.
• 11:02
  Speaker B: So how do you think the commandant figured this out? So I thought my wife. I said to my wife watched some
• 11:08
  Speaker A: of this with me.
• 11:09
  Speaker B: Did he, like, memorize what all the prisoners look like, do you think? Or maybe he just saw them stealing the guy's hat?
• 11:15
  Speaker A: I think he just saw them do it.
• 11:16
  Speaker B: It's not like they disguised it very well.
• 11:18
  Speaker A: No. Yeah. And we get the cooler king gets out a baseball m and a ball, and he FL finds a blind spot at the gate between two of the towers and throws the ball into the spot to see if they either one of them noticed.
• 11:35
  Speaker B: So, Christian, did this make any sense to you?
• 11:38
  Speaker A: Yes, but what's the.
• 11:39
  Speaker B: So I was like. So that you look at the towers, and there are four sides to the towers, and there's a guard standing in the towers. So how could there be a blind spot if the guard can just turn his head and look down the road?
• 11:51
  Speaker A: I think it's a blind spot if they're not looking, like, they're not looking there all the time.
• 11:55
  Speaker B: So Steam McQueen is like, this is a perfect plan as long as the guard never moves his head, which, of course, is exactly what they did.
• 12:01
  Speaker A: Well, he's planning on it using this in the dead of night, where they have, you know, spotlights. So as long as the spotlights don't converge in that spot, they're okay.
• 12:14
  Speaker B: Well, in that case, he didn't explain it very well, because I was confused. And he walked to the fence in the middle of the day. So then I was like, what?
• 12:21
  Speaker A: Anyway, so another one of the Brits tries to blend into the Russians, and they get caught before they're leaving camp. We see one hiding in the discard in the truck in the discarded branches. This is Ives. He's Scottish. And there's a lot more in, like, the other trucks. And this is. Yeah. When the cooler king uses the opportunity to stand in that blind spot, but he gets caught pretty quickly. Now, he doesn't get caught by the people in the towers, though. He gets caught by a guard on the ground.
• 12:49
  Speaker B: That was also unclear to me.
• 12:51
  Speaker A: Yeah. And then once that guard caught attention, that's when he's. They shot at his feet.
• 12:55
  Speaker B: Okay. That was also something I remembered from watching the movie before, is when he's throwing the baseball at the wall over and over again.
• 13:03
  Speaker A: Yeah, well, we're not there. We'll get to that.
• 13:05
  Speaker B: Okay. Okay. Yeah, that's right.
• 13:09
  Speaker A: So, yeah, we find out his name is Captain Hiltz, and he has 18 escape attempts. He is a pilot, and so he gets sent to 20 days in the cooler.
• 13:18
  Speaker B: By the way, this was also interesting. They don't say when the movie takes place, but I feel like it must have been before America entered the war, because all the Americans, like, were flying with the British, they said.
• 13:29
  Speaker A: That's true. That's a good point. Yeah.
• 13:31
  Speaker B: Yeah. Which means they would be in prison for a long time if they didn't escape.
• 13:36
  Speaker A: Well, yeah. Well, let's see. I mean, I suppose we could find out when the actual escape happened.
• 13:42
  Speaker B: Mm.
• 13:43
  Speaker A: Which was in 1942. In March. Oh, no, that was when it was. It was founded. 1944. March. So it's after America entered the war.
• 13:53
  Speaker B: Okay, well, close to the end of the war, then. Interesting.
• 13:56
  Speaker A: Two years in. I know. Three. 1941, December 7th.
• 14:01
  Speaker B: There you go. All right.
• 14:04
  Speaker A: All right. So where are we? Oh, yes. When we. Yeah, so they're sent to 20 days in the cooler, which is isolation. Except they can still talk to each other.
• 14:14
  Speaker B: Yeah, I guess it's not true. Isolation. It reminds me of the shoe from Orange is the New Black.
• 14:18
  Speaker A: I never watched it.
• 14:19
  Speaker B: So it's a women's prison. Right. The only thing they can really Threaten them with is isolation or like solitary confinement. Yeah. So we get some backstories about the guys.
• 14:31
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 14:32
  Speaker B: And I felt a little bit offended. There's a part where I've says he's five foot four and he's not five foot four. At least the actor isn't, because I'm five foot five. And there's a part where he says that he was a jockey in horse racing. I'm sorry, 5 foot 4 is too tall to be a jockey. You have to be much shorter than that. I knew a guy in college who was shorter than me and he was a. What do you call those people on the rowing team?
• 15:02
  Speaker A: True.
• 15:04
  Speaker B: Actually, they asked him to be a coxswain. He said no, a coxswain for the rowing team. So you have to be really small to do that job. So I don't know. Anyway.
• 15:14
  Speaker A: And we find out that Cooler King used to ride motorcycles and he's already planning another escape attempt.
• 15:24
  Speaker B: Yeah. They don't seem deterred at all that this is a special present for people who are good at escaping.
• 15:29
  Speaker A: But. Yeah, so we get. This is the bit we get where he's throwing the baseball up against the wall. Over and over.
• 15:36
  Speaker B: Correct.
• 15:37
  Speaker A: Now a new prisoner is brought to the camp. Bartlett. And here we get some infighting between the Luftwaffe, the SS and the Gestapo.
• 15:44
  Speaker B: Mm.
• 15:45
  Speaker A: Like over who's got jurisdiction.
• 15:47
  Speaker B: How sad is that? That the Luftwaffe are considered the good guys or the better choice?
• 15:52
  Speaker A: Better.
• 15:53
  Speaker B: I also had an observation which is in this part, this is gonna sound kind of weird, but behind Von Luger, who's the commandant, there's a picture of an airplane with a funny looking nose. Like. Okay, like a snub nose.
• 16:06
  Speaker A: Sure.
• 16:06
  Speaker B: On the plane. And that plane. Not that exact plan, but that type of plane, I think is at the Air and Space Museum. Space museum, yeah. So I thought that was. I noticed.
• 16:15
  Speaker A: I'll have to look at that. But yeah. So we find out that Ramsay, the group group captain, knows Bartlett and it knows a whole bunch of the other prisoners who are put there. And they says almost the entire X organization. So there is. There's a plan behind this. Ramsey and Bart Bartlett have a discussion about what's the focus of their action. Because at this point, Bartlett wants to, you know, take revenge against the Luftwaffe and the SS and Gestapo. But obviously they're with the Luftwaffe. And so they gotta make sure. They're focusing on just making sure that they use their resources wisely. And they're kind of call meeting tonight.
• 16:56
  Speaker B: So there's a part where the Gestapo and his Disguise Hail Hitler or Heil Hitler. And then Luger doesn't Heil them back and they look all, like, offended. Which I think that's the thing in World War II movies to show that, like, this German guy is not as bad as the other German guys because he doesn't like a high oligarchy Hitler. He only does it because he has to. Also, this whole thing, we learn later that their. Their goal is to disrupt the Germans, to make the Germans life harder.
• 17:22
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 17:22
  Speaker B: Did you ever watch Hogan's Heroes?
• 17:24
  Speaker A: Never did, no. But I know of it.
• 17:26
  Speaker B: So obviously it's a really popular show. And I tried watching at one point and it was aggressively unfunny. That's what I remember. Yeah. It's just not funny. But that's what reminded me of where it's a more serious. This movie still has some good jokes in it, but this is a more serious version of that.
• 17:44
  Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. Also we find out that Bartlett's code name is Big X. So he's the head of the X organization, as it were.
• 17:53
  Speaker B: This reminds me of the Double Cross organization. Right. From other spies. It's almost like it is a spy movie, as it turns out. Yeah.
• 18:01
  Speaker A: So Big X calls a meeting. They said they've already done Survey and Huts 104 and 105 are the closest to the fence line. So they're going to dig multiple tunnels. They're going to call them Tom, Dick and Harry. They're going to go 30ft down and Big X wants to bring out 250 men. But they're going to need civilian clothing and papers for everyone.
• 18:22
  Speaker B: Yeah. They're so organized. Do you think this was like a British production? Because it makes the British look a lot better than the Americans. Maybe that's just an accident.
• 18:31
  Speaker A: Artists.
• 18:32
  Speaker B: Yeah, that's not. I mean, United Artists made those James Bond movies.
• 18:35
  Speaker A: It did, but they weren't. They're not explicitly British, but I don't know.
• 18:41
  Speaker B: I mean, the British are like the stodgy ones who do everything by the book. The Americans are the cool ones. So I guess there you go. So there's. I love moral dilemmas. And there actually is a moral dilemma in this part. Christian, do you remember?
• 18:52
  Speaker A: I do not. What is it?
• 18:53
  Speaker B: So they're like, we're treated pretty well here.
• 18:56
  Speaker A: Yeah, but.
• 18:56
  Speaker B: And if we escape, think. Or if we try to escape or if people do escape, they'll treat the rest of us worse. So it reminded me of Harriet. That's a callback to Harriet. Right. Where her situation is terrible. But if she Tries to escape. It could just make things worse. So, like, what do you do?
• 19:13
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 19:14
  Speaker B: Obviously there isn't much moral antagonizing about it in this movie. They just decided to go ahead and do it. But that. And also my wife was watching this and she said it seems like they have a pretty good situation. Right. They're not fighting the war, so they're not going to get killed. And they just have to, like, not do anything and eventually they'll get let out. And I said, well, the problem is, first of all, I think the movie. They're treated better in the movie than they probably would be in real life.
• 19:40
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 19:40
  Speaker B: And even if they're being treated well right now, there's no guarantee it's going to stay that way. Also, what if the war lasts for like 20 years or something? Just stuck there.
• 19:49
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 19:50
  Speaker B: Also, like, they say it's their duty to try to escape.
• 19:53
  Speaker A: Exactly.
• 19:54
  Speaker B: So how do you like that? I answer my own question.
• 19:58
  Speaker A: We meet a couple more characters here. Blofeld, AKA Blythe. It's weird to see him acting mostly normal and not like Blofeld.
• 20:09
  Speaker B: He's still creepy.
• 20:10
  Speaker A: It's stiff about him. Yeah, yeah.
• 20:12
  Speaker B: Where he's like, I like the tea.
• 20:14
  Speaker A: Yeah. And he's a forger. Yeah. So he's a forgery. And his roommate is the American scrounger, Henley. So he's basically like Red from. What's that movie?
• 20:28
  Speaker B: Shawshank Redemption.
• 20:29
  Speaker A: Shawshank Redemption. He can get anything.
• 20:31
  Speaker B: And you actually see how he does it. Because I was wondering how, like, civilian clothes, like, how are they gonna get this stuff in an actual prison? It turns out they do.
• 20:39
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 20:39
  Speaker B: So they start using wood from the bunks to build the tunnel. That was very cool.
• 20:44
  Speaker A: I like. Henley scrounges some steel for a pick while others are causing distraction. So this is a lot of, like, it's not necessarily espionage work, but it's more like sleight of hand. Like con men, kind of short con things.
• 20:56
  Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
• 20:59
  Speaker A: That is a big deal. Like. Like, especially during the days of the oss, you had, you know, pickpockets and everyone who would teach them how to do things like this.
• 21:08
  Speaker B: Yeah. I mean. Yeah, it's misdirection. It seems like distractions work really well.
• 21:12
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 21:13
  Speaker B: Like, they spray a German soldier with water and it causes like, this huge blow up. And what's interesting is the Germans actually fall for it again, for the most part, you'd think that they. Because it's such a. Because they know all these guys are escape artists. You think they Would kind of be aware that.
• 21:31
  Speaker A: Yes, you would think so. But, yeah. So he makes a pretty good pickaxe. I was like, wow, that's actually like a pickaxe. It looks good. Anyway, so they start digging. The lead digger, Danny, is working on, like, a bunch of different tunnels. At one point, the guards come in while they're digging in the bathroom. So they have to get him, you know, get him out and get him in the shower.
• 21:53
  Speaker B: So do you remember the part where they have a guy hanging a hole and they time the blows? So what did that remind you of? Anybody from a long time ago? The spy fi. Guys?
• 22:05
  Speaker A: No. What?
• 22:06
  Speaker B: Oh, my God, Do I remember his name?
• 22:09
  Speaker A: Is it. What is it from God?
• 22:10
  Speaker B: The guy who almost blew up Hitler. My, like, personal hero whose name I forget.
• 22:16
  Speaker A: I remember. Yeah. Forget about that. Yeah, yeah.
• 22:18
  Speaker B: I'm saying.
• 22:19
  Speaker A: I mean, it reminded me of Shawshank. He's timing the hits of the rock with thunderstorm Georg Elseler.
• 22:25
  Speaker B: Elser. I don't think I would have remembered that on my own, but, yeah. So according to the book that I read, Countdown to Valkyrie, he also would time his hammer blows with sound so that it wouldn't get heard.
• 22:37
  Speaker A: Wow, that is a deep callback.
• 22:40
  Speaker B: Thank you.
• 22:41
  Speaker A: Yeah. And so Hilts, AKA the Cooler King, is counting down the days in the cooler and is told he can come out. And Ives is released, too. They go to meet Bartlett and Ramsay, and Hiltz tells them his next plan, which is, go, we're gonna dig a quick tunnel just right at the edge. We don't have to worry about air because it's just gonna be so quick that we're gonna get out quick, quickly.
• 23:04
  Speaker B: And they try to convince it's a questionable plan. And I think everybody knows that also, like when they say all escape attempts have to be cleared, it's like for the British to make anything into a bureaucracy.
• 23:16
  Speaker A: Yeah. And I was. So McDonald, who is apparently the. In the intel guy of the. Of their. See, they're spying here. So he's the one who tells them that he knows about their plan, basically. And they try to convince him not to try because there's a larger plan at work. They don't explicitly tell him, but they hint at it. And. But they said, okay, good luck. Go for it. And Bartlett comes, realizes that, you know, if we stop all attempts, the guards will have to be convinced that we're planning something big.
• 23:43
  Speaker B: It would feel weird if they put a whole camp full of escapees and then none of them ever tried to escape.
• 23:47
  Speaker A: Right. And then there's A nice smash cut here because it's. It. Well, if doesn't work, they'll be in the cooler for a long time. And then smash cuts and Ives covered in dirt. Going back to the cooler.
• 23:58
  Speaker B: Yeah, cover it in dirt. I like how they didn't even show us what happened.
• 24:02
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's very funny. Which is interesting because, you know, like, Stephen Queen's like, on the COVID of these, he's like, you know, listed as one of the big stars, but he spends so far in the first half, most of his time in the cooler.
• 24:13
  Speaker B: Yeah, fair. I mean, that reminds me of Marlon Brando for Superman, where he is. He's only in the beginning of the movie. Really?
• 24:19
  Speaker A: Yeah, true. So there's more digging. They're looking at the dirt from the compound versus the dirt in the tunnel. And they're definitely different colors. I need to figure out a way to hide it. And then. Ilya, I don't remember his actual name in the. In this.
• 24:32
  Speaker B: Me neither.
• 24:34
  Speaker A: David McCallum. Is that his name?
• 24:35
  Speaker B: Yeah, that's his name.
• 24:37
  Speaker A: He comes up with this contraption made out of like socks on a string with a release. And if you hide it in your pants, you get out to the garden and take it to the garden. You pull on this one of the strings and it'll release it through your pant legs.
• 24:49
  Speaker B: Which again, they do that in Starshank Redemption.
• 24:51
  Speaker A: Right? Well, he. Yeah, kind of in a much lower scale. He just has in his pocket and he releases it.
• 24:57
  Speaker B: Yeah. On the baseball field.
• 24:59
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 24:59
  Speaker B: So I always wondered how pounds and pounds and pounds and pounds of dirt could be done this way. But I guess you just press it down, it goes somewhere. I don't know physics. By the way, also, David McCallum. Did you ever watch NCIS? The most popular?
• 25:13
  Speaker A: No, but I know he is in it.
• 25:15
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 25:16
  Speaker A: Is Ducky. No.
• 25:17
  Speaker B: Yeah, he's old. Him is the medical examiner.
• 25:22
  Speaker A: Yeah. Where was it? Oh, yeah. So I liked how, you know, they take it out to the garden plots. My favorite one was when they were out marching and they released it when they're marching. So all the dust gets kicked up and it hides it there.
• 25:35
  Speaker B: I mean, you can still see it on the ground, but I guess, why would the German consider it? So there you go.
• 25:40
  Speaker A: Yeah. So. And then we have see a choir who's singing outside to distract from the sound of machining. And they're working on this air pump first. I was like, wait, how are you gonna do an air pump? Like, almost like an accordion style thing to pump air inside. Oh, that's Actually pretty impressive and shows some ingenuity.
• 25:58
  Speaker B: Yeah, well, they thought of everything, right? They thought of breaks in the tunnel, putting air into the tunnel and. But the thing is, we never see it again. The tunnel's not that big.
• 26:06
  Speaker A: They mention it a lot, but they don't. Well, so far we haven't seen. We also. We all haven't. I mean, to the point that we got in the movie. We haven't seen them actually trying to use it yet.
• 26:15
  Speaker B: Yeah, that's true. Because they're not ready to escape. But the guys digging would need the air. Yeah. I like the singing. It's almost like it's a musical. There's a lot of singing, actually, even in the first half. That was good.
• 26:28
  Speaker A: Yeah. And then we see Henley the Scrounger making friends with one of the guards. And this is classic, like, developing an asset, really.
• 26:37
  Speaker B: Is it bad that it felt like he was coming on to him?
• 26:40
  Speaker A: I didn't get that sense, but I could see it.
• 26:42
  Speaker B: There's a part where he's like, why don't you come into my room and we can talk in private? Like, he literally said something like that. And he said it like that.
• 26:50
  Speaker A: He lures him with coffee, like, actual real coffee, which somehow he got. But they don't have in the camp for the workers. And I like how they start bonding over how the fact that they were in the Boy Scouts together. And then we're going to mention that, oh, you know, he had Werner, the guard had 19, you know, merit badges, whereas Henley had 20. And Werner makes the excuse of, oh, well, you know, I was working on my 20th when they canceled the Scouts and changed it into the Hitler Youth.
• 27:20
  Speaker B: Yeah. There's a part where he has Von Luger's, like, broccoli or something. I don't know, something like that. And the guy gets all mad. He steals his wallet while he's, like, hugging him.
• 27:30
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 27:30
  Speaker B: But then I guess he never gets in trouble for stealing Von Luger's stuff.
• 27:35
  Speaker A: You skipped ahead. The part that I enjoyed was him, like, as he's getting, you know, he's looking for the coffee, and he had gotten all these sweets that, you know, had been sent to. To. For the entire camp. And she's, like, pulling out all these sweets to try to distract him. It's like, oh, look at all we have here. We have chocolate. We have marmalade. We have, yeah. Von Luger's cream or whatever. Oh, it was totally intentional that he. To get him because he's. He has one goal in mind, which is to get Those papers.
• 28:06
  Speaker B: Okay. And he knew he wasn't just going to give it to him.
• 28:08
  Speaker A: No. He had to do. So he pulls out the sweets and then also to get them to try, like, try to. Gives him the chocolate to try to get him to not report him, which is all just to get. So he can, like, pull him close to grab him and then pull to, you know, as he's trying to say, don't know, don't leave, don't leave, don't report me. So he has an excuse to touch him, to grab the papers.
• 28:29
  Speaker B: Yeah. It's risky, though. I feel like if you're in an American prison, you put your hands on a prison guard, you get your ass beat.
• 28:37
  Speaker A: Yeah. Well, that's why he's already got, you know, gotten established that relationship. And he had, like, he's in a. In a way, like I said, it's class, almost a classic, you know, asset developing technique. You. You have a kind of coercion because he's already done so much. He's already come into his room, which he's not supposed to.
• 28:55
  Speaker B: He.
• 28:56
  Speaker A: He's already taken something from the prisoner, like a gift from the prisoner, which is also not supposed to. So he's already in deep. He's in so deep that he has not gonna be able to report. So I. It's. It's really well done.
• 29:09
  Speaker B: Yeah. I feel like in a different movie with some. Right. Music, you could make it, like, more tense, but I guess that wasn't what they were going for.
• 29:16
  Speaker A: No, they're going. Yeah. But. Yeah. So he's got the papers now. And Blofeld, AKA Blythe. I'm just gonna keep calling. Blofeld is teaching a class on bird calls in one of the huts. And he goes on for so long that he bores the guard so much that he has. That he leaves. And once the guard leaves and they do this intricate system of telling them when. How far the guard was away.
• 29:38
  Speaker B: That's right. So again, intelligence.
• 29:41
  Speaker A: There you go. Yep. They show and then they show off what their current forgeries are to Big X.
• 29:47
  Speaker B: Big X, yeah. Is this the bird briefing scene?
• 29:49
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. And so, like, I like how he says, all right, you know, this is the real one. This is the forgery. Or is that. Or can you tell which one is the forgery? And Big X is like. It's. This one's. Like, actually, they're both fakes.
• 30:00
  Speaker B: Yeah. Also the part where they're doing the birds and Donald Pleasance is doing like the bird call, I thought, how is this gonna Help them escape. And then when they pan the camera around and you see a German soldier
• 30:12
  Speaker A: there, you're like, yeah, yeah, but, yeah. And so Henley shows off his wares, like, all the different things he gathered from them from Werner's wallet. And it's basically the jackpot. So it's all the things that they need for, you know, to get out. And then this part, next start was the tailor. I was like. I was impressed. Like, he's showing off his work. So they're using blankets and other materials that they've been able to scrounge around to make civilian clothing.
• 30:39
  Speaker B: Yep, that's right.
• 30:41
  Speaker A: And they're, like, dying it using different things they have around. And we get Hilts and Ives released again. Hilt meets meets with Bartlett and MacDonald McDonald's his second in command. Ives is close to cracking and talks to Hilts about his next plan and his next planned escape. And tell him that they need to know the position of the local town, local roads, where the railway station is. Basically, make a map for them. And he says, if I get out, I'm not gonna make maps and send it back to you. I'm gonna be hightailing out of here. And this is when Hilts finds out how many they're trying to actually break out, all 250 of them. He's shocked. And he also figures that not only do they want him to break out and get the intel they need, they want him to get caught again so that he can spend months in the cooler so that he can get that intel back to them.
• 31:35
  Speaker B: I mean, it's a pretty big ask, right?
• 31:37
  Speaker A: It's a big ask, yeah.
• 31:39
  Speaker B: Why don't I get someone else to do it?
• 31:41
  Speaker A: Well, because no one else has actually gotten. Gotten close to getting out. And he's the wild card. He's the wild card American.
• 31:50
  Speaker B: I mean, he hasn't gotten out yet either, though.
• 31:52
  Speaker A: No, but he's made enough attempts that he might actually do it. And this part is where Werner realizes his wallet is missing, so he goes to Henley for help. And Blight's there, too.
• 32:01
  Speaker B: I thought it was interesting. He thinks it's lost. It never occurs to him that in a camp full of enemy soldiers, that one of them could have taken it.
• 32:10
  Speaker A: Well, he, you know, Henley. Henley picked his target. Well, someone who was, you know, naive enough to actually assume that they were friends. Not necessarily, you know, think about it that way.
• 32:22
  Speaker B: Well, also, I feel like if he had told his boss, like, someone stole my wallet. Someone stole my wallet, he'd get in trouble and he would get in trouble.
• 32:28
  Speaker A: Yeah, which he mentions he would get in a lot of trouble. And so Henley says that he'll help Warner. I was like, not right now. Because it'll look very suspicious if you and me are looking at the middle of the night. But you know, I'll. I'll help you for a price. And it's the camera that Blythe wants, which he claims is for bird watching. So there's more digging we have. And I. They have a real nice pulley cart system that I noticed. I'm like, wow, they really put this thing together.
• 32:51
  Speaker B: Well, the part with the tunnels stress me out. Did you ever do like caving or like spelunking?
• 32:56
  Speaker A: A little, but not a lot.
• 32:57
  Speaker B: So I used to do it a lot when I was in middle school and I thought I was cool with enclosed faces, but I haven't done it again in a while, so I wonder if that's still the case. But yeah, it's pretty claustrophobic in there, especially part where there's a collapse and the guy gets buried.
• 33:13
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And they have to pull him out. And apparently it's the fourth collapse that day. But they need more wood to, you know, to support the tunnel. So they're trying to scrounge all sorts of wood from the huts. Hilts is helping by gathering the wood in his hut. He's, you know, taking it from the bunks. And then Cavendish, the guy who is leading this choir is like, you know, I'm all right, I'm gonna take a lie down. This is so much singing. And he, he goes, he jumps to his third, is a three tier bunk. He jumps into the third bunk and crashes all the way through each, all the bunks. Because Hilts took too much wood.
• 33:51
  Speaker B: Yeah. Haha. Some good slapstick comedy. Yeah, I were wondering like, is this gonna work? Like, are they gonna notice?
• 34:02
  Speaker A: So Danny now has quite the tunnel system going. He makes his report to Ramsay. Hiltz is working on some new scheme and they don't know what he's doing. He's buying up all the potatoes in the camp.
• 34:13
  Speaker B: Yeah, I, I kind of figured this out as soon as they saw some contraption there.
• 34:17
  Speaker A: Well, but the big news here is that they're sealing off Dick and Harry and they're gonna put all the effort into Tom because Danny's got the first furthest on that one. So Hilts. Yeah, Hilts and a few others who I realize later are all the Americans have some contraption with the potatoes. I'm like, is it vodka?
• 34:37
  Speaker B: Yeah, but see, I thought they were making the vodka, so I don't know. So they could, like, make explosives or something.
• 34:43
  Speaker A: And there's a bit of that, too. So I like how Hilts raises a makeshift American flag, and then he has a makeshift cannon, too.
• 34:51
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 34:51
  Speaker A: To, like, wake everyone up, which is why I was like, whoa, what's going on here? Are they gonna plan an escape attempt with the alcohol or something? But then he brings out another American flag. And a 13. Yeah, that, too.
• 35:06
  Speaker B: A flute.
• 35:07
  Speaker A: A flute, not a pipe. Well, and the drum. And they do a Yankee Doodle March and invite all of the Brits for drinks. And it's not vodka, it's moonshine. American moonshine.
• 35:20
  Speaker B: So I thought, obviously, they wouldn't be allowed to do this, or maybe they would, but then why would they keep it a secret?
• 35:25
  Speaker A: Well, because, you know. Well, you know, I think it's a surprise, and it's celebrating the Fourth of July because we've had a lot of mentions about the dark of the moon, or whatever they call it, is on July 7th. So that's approaching.
• 35:39
  Speaker B: So I missed that it was in July because when they were singing the Christmas songs, I thought it was Christmas time, but then why would it be warm? And I was very confused, so I guess I cleared it out.
• 35:49
  Speaker A: Yeah. A bunch of the guards are about to engage, but the lead guard says, no, no, let them go. And all the Brits are appreciating the moonshine, but the guards take this opportunity to inspect one of the huts. And so the Brits alert Bartlett. And Bartlett says, no, you gotta ignore it, because if we cause a big steal that they're in our hut, then they've inspected a hundred times already. But if we make a big deal about. They all know something's up.
• 36:13
  Speaker B: Like. But they don't need to make a big deal. They could have just come in and said, like, hey, you guys want some drinks? What? You know,
• 36:20
  Speaker A: that might have been the better way to go. Yeah.
• 36:22
  Speaker B: Well, the thing is. Sorry if I'm skipping ahead, but the one guy left behind who discovers the tunnel, if PR had come in and talk to him, he. Maybe he wouldn't have discovered the tunnel.
• 36:31
  Speaker A: Yeah. No, you're right. You're right. But. But I. I also. I get where Big X or Bartlett's coming from, is that, you know, we can't draw attention to it.
• 36:40
  Speaker B: Yeah. Which they probably would have.
• 36:43
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 36:43
  Speaker B: So I also wondered if the whole 4th July party was part of their plan to lure the Germans to a false sense of security, maybe. Yeah.
• 36:52
  Speaker A: And, like, the guards notice that there's something off with what? Some of the boards in the bunk, it's missing some pieces. And then one of them, like, is pouring. It's either coffee or tea, and spills it. And he notices that when he spills it, it just goes. It doesn't get. You know, it doesn't get. It gets absorbed underneath one of the panels rather than just staying as a puddle. And so he's like, wait, what's going on? So he pours more and just sees it go right through. And that's when they. They move the heater and find the tunnel entrance.
• 37:27
  Speaker B: Yep.
• 37:28
  Speaker A: And I, like, shortly before this, Ives and another Scott were, like, talking about how, you know, we'll be back home soon. And being. But I is just so, so brokenhearted. And he's cracked. So he goes across the wire into no Man's Land, into the supposed blind spot that. And he goes there, climbs up the fence, and the Hilts, like, tries to save him by, like, knocking the guy who's about to shoot at him off.
• 38:00
  Speaker B: Yeah. Do you like that Captain Kirk run in black?
• 38:03
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, that was nice. But Hilts gets shot or not Hilt. Ives gets shot by one of the men in the tower, and he dies.
• 38:10
  Speaker B: Yeah. So I didn't like this part when I was watching it, but I'm like, you know, things were a little too light and fun up until now.
• 38:19
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 38:19
  Speaker B: We got jokes. Everyone's getting along. Everybody's having a good time.
• 38:23
  Speaker A: Had a Fourth of July party.
• 38:25
  Speaker B: Yeah. The tunnel's going great. And so it's like, okay, maybe things could get a little bit more serious.
• 38:31
  Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, and at this point, you know. Yeah, everything's got serious. And now he'll test his motivation. So he'll tell his Bartlett that he'll get them exactly what, all the info they need, you know, Tell me when.
• 38:44
  Speaker B: Yeah. And they're saying, better start digging, which is good. That they have two backup tunnels, as
• 38:47
  Speaker A: it turns out, and they're going to open up Harry and dig around the clock. And with that, we have a very nice convenient endpoint because it even fades to black.
• 38:59
  Speaker B: So I wonder if this movie was made that was when they still had intermissions in theaters.
• 39:02
  Speaker A: Maybe. I mean, for a longer movie. Well, even, like, I'm thinking, what some of the older, like, musicals, like Camelot has an intermission, and that's what, 1967 or so. So around this time, maybe when we
• 39:16
  Speaker B: turn it back on, it'll be intermission for five minutes or whatever. So spy fact versus spy fiction. Yeah.
• 39:28
  Speaker A: But with that, our Our part one ends now. Did you have any spy fact versus spy fiction for this part one?
• 39:34
  Speaker B: I figured I would just save it for part two. All right, well, I don't remember what we did. It's been so long since we did a two parter.
• 39:40
  Speaker A: So I have a little bit. And I'll say. But I'll. I'll just mention this. So the real life Cooler King, there's two potential ones. Now, the one that is mentioned and the one is the reason why I decided we can cover this even though there's no exact spying. Is Jerome Michael Sage is one of them on. Let me pull it up here. Who was actually given the nickname Cooler King. So that's why he's one of the primary inspirations. But he was also a member of the OSS and was trained by Wild Bill Donovan. And he was actually one of the first men to graduate from the Special Operations Branch and attended the Camp X training course for the soe, which we mentioned all the way back in Fleming and other episodes. But yeah, so that's, that's why like I had seen a post about him from the OSS's Facebook page. I was like. And they mentioned that he was the inspiration for the Cooler King's like. All right, there's my excuse why we're covering this.
• 40:40
  Speaker B: I mean. Oh, well, there you go. And it's a pretty direct. Pretty clear. Which was something we rarely get in movies.
• 40:47
  Speaker A: Yeah. The other person who is the basis for. Who's also claimed as inspiration as William Franklin Ash, who was all. Now both of these guys were in this camp which I already forgot the Name of.
• 41:02
  Speaker B: Oh. Stalag 17.
• 41:04
  Speaker A: Stalag Luft 3. Now, I didn't read too far into what they did in these camps because I don't want to spoil the movie and figure out. But there is a biography about William Ashe called the Cooler King. The True Story of William ash, Spitfire Pilot POW. And World War II's greatest escaper. So both of them have a claim. Although Jerry Sage is the one who has. Who's been direct directly noted. That's the nickname of the Cooler King.
• 41:33
  Speaker B: It's like the King of Pop versus the King of Rock and Roll.
• 41:36
  Speaker A: Yeah. Now there I have two other things I've got. So if you. Have you seen Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
• 41:43
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 41:44
  Speaker A: Leonardo DiCaprio's character, Rick Dalton.
• 41:47
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 41:47
  Speaker A: Is mentioned as he was tried out for the Great Escape. And they actually have a bit in this in Once Upon a Time in Holly where they see where they like CGI Leo into the scene where Cooler King's introduced, and he's talking about the various escape temps, and he shows them the wire cutters and everything.
• 42:06
  Speaker B: Okay, I do not remember that part. That's cool.
• 42:10
  Speaker A: And I have one last thing. So you mentioned the baseball throwing by the Cooler King. That is the inspiration for two character traits in TV and film. One which we've covered and one which we have now. Talk about the one which we haven't at first. So in the past year or so, I did a rewatch of the West Wing, and I've been listening to the West Wing weekly podcast. Now, the character Toby Ziegler, played by Richard Schiff, his. He has a character trait of. He has a Spalding ball, which is like the ins. Like the inside of a tennis ball, pink ball. So he would throw it again when he was thinking he would throw against the wall and catch it. And he said that it was directly Inspired by Steve McQueen in the Great Escape. So this is his nod to that.
• 43:00
  Speaker B: Yeah. Like, I've never seen the West Wing, but it definitely looks familiar. Like, I've seen.
• 43:05
  Speaker A: You've seen it from Tom Cruise.
• 43:08
  Speaker B: Tom Cruise, okay.
• 43:09
  Speaker A: Mission Impossible, Ghost Protocol. He has the rock that he had. He has been throwing against the one. It's a rock, not a ball. And in the director's commentary, Cruise and McQuarrie said, that's a direct inspiration. And it was one of the ways that, you know, they knew that they were so in sync now at the. McQuarrie didn't direct Ghost Protocol. He was. Came in later as a writer. You know, McQuarrie had this idea when they're reshooting the intro scene for him, where him, you know, came out as a writer. And Brad Bird. Brad Bird. He was either Bird or McQuarrie. It was the director of the writer who had this idea. And as soon as Tom Cruise came out of the scene, he's like. Had the exact same idea. He's like, cooler King, we should do that. And he's like, yep. So that's where they got that idea to you with him throwing the rock. All right, so. But yeah, we'll save a lot of the big spy factors fiction for the second part of this.
• 44:03
  Speaker B: Favorite quotes. Okay, sounds good. So next we have our favorite quotes.
• 44:11
  Speaker A: I've got two. What have you got?
• 44:14
  Speaker B: I got a few. So actually, why don't you go first?
• 44:16
  Speaker A: So I've got one. It's. They pull Danny out of the. When they're digging in the bathroom. And the evening he send. He's like, I'm Showering. And then what's his face in like, Flint himself is like, I'm watching him. I'm a lifeguard.
• 44:29
  Speaker B: As he's just there. Yeah, it sounds very unconvincing.
• 44:34
  Speaker A: But then the big one I got is it's the sworn duty of all officers to try and escape. If they can't, it's 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 abilities.
• 44:49
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. You like the heroic ones?
• 44:51
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 44:52
  Speaker B: So the movie had a lot of pretty funny lines. There's a part where the. The German says, it is not a matter for levity. Reminded me, you ever heard the joke about why Germans had no sense of humor? Yeah, it's because they killed all the funny ones. Oh,
• 45:07
  Speaker A: wow.
• 45:07
  Speaker B: Yeah, the part where the two soldiers get into the fake fight. They do the thing from Galaxy Quest.
• 45:13
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
• 45:14
  Speaker B: There's a part where one of them goes, hey, not so hard. I thought that was funny. Steve McQueen says, you want me to get out and then sit in the cooler free? I wouldn't do that for my own mother. That was great. And then the part with the Independence Day had a lot of really good quotes between the British and the Americans, like, how are things in the colonies? How are you managing without us? Stuff like that. But my favorite one is down with the British. And the British guy says, quite right too. I feel like we should bring that back on the 4th of July. No, down with the British. All right, so are we going to do a rating for the first half or save it for the second half?
• 45:53
  Speaker A: We could do a rating.
• 45:54
  Speaker B: Yeah, I was hoping you would say no because I don't know what to rate it. So here on the spy fi guys, we rate every movie on a scale of from one to ten martinis. One being Avengers 1998 level bad, and ten being even better than Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol that we mentioned before. So how would we rate the Great Escape part one?
• 46:14
  Speaker A: I mean, and we, we can up. We'll update these as we go. But at least for this first half, I'm really enjoying this. Like, like I said, you know, it's not a traditional spy movie, but there's a lot of spy techniques being used, a lot of deception, a lot of distraction. So I'm. I would say I'm going to give this a solid 8 so far. I mean, I, I feel like a lot more is going to come, even though for in the second half and, and which may change My. My rating, but I'm really enjoying this.
• 46:43
  Speaker B: Good. I'm glad to hear that. So let me think about for mine. So the first quarter. Yeah, I was like, this isn't so strong.
• 46:51
  Speaker A: Yeah, it was a little slow at the beginning, I'll give you that.
• 46:53
  Speaker B: Yeah, it, like moved okay. It wasn't, like, boring, but I didn't feel like the characters did very much for me and. But then it picked up. It got funnier. More stuff happened. I don't want to give it a seven, though, because I hate giving things. Seven just means that's good.
• 47:11
  Speaker A: So, I mean, and some things are just good.
• 47:14
  Speaker B: It's not good enough to be. I think I'm gonna give it a 7.5.
• 47:17
  Speaker A: All right. All right.
• 47:19
  Speaker B: Yeah, it is good. The characters are coming together. It's not boring. It's a good combination of funny and silly. But also serious. It could be a little bit more serious, I think.
• 47:33
  Speaker A: And I think we'll get more serious in this for.
• 47:36
  Speaker B: No, I actually know that it does because stuff I remember from the second half is pretty serious. Also, I like the music, I like the singing, and I. I learned a bit. So, yeah, I think seven and a half is fair. I don't know. It may stay that way in the second half.
• 47:50
  Speaker A: I guess we'll see. Yeah. But yes. So thank you all for listening and tune in next month for our part two of the Great Escape. You can find us on social media at the Spy FY guys on Facebook, Blue Sky, YouTube and Instagram, and our merch store@redbubble.com until next time. I'm Christian.
• 48:08
  Speaker B: And I'm Zach.
• 48:09
  Speaker A: And we are the Spy Fi Guys. Signing off. Thank you for listening to the Spy Fi Guys. If you enjoyed our podcast, please be sure to give us a five star 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.
• 48:43
  Speaker B: This is a personal podcast. Any views, statements or opinions expressed in this podcast are personal, 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.
• 49:08
  Speaker A: You can find our podcast on social media at the Spy Fi guys on Facebook, Bluesky, YouTube and Instagram. Instagram.