The Great Escape

Daisy's story is below the poster.

Daisy's second "war" movie after Lawrence of Arabia was The Great Escape. While there really was a great escape, the movie was highly fictionalized and characters were added to appeal to American audiences in particular. Other characters in the film were composites of several people; however, many of the actors actually served in the military, so they were knowledgeable and informative. It was a very educational experience.

Donald Pleasance gave director John Sturgess technical advice because he had been a Royal Air Force pilot in World War II who was shot down and was in a German prisoner of war camp. James Garner was a soldier in the Korean war and was twice wounded; he was a scrounger during that time as was his character in the film. Richard Attenborough was an RAF air gunner/photographer for three years, and Steve McQueen was in the Marines but spent a lot of his time in the brig for going AWOL. Several of the actors portraying the Germans in the P.O.W. camp had also been prisoners of war too, one who escaped from a Russian P.O.W.camp and two more who were prisoners of the Americans. The guard who catches the escapees coming out of the hole was played by a man who actually had been a P.O.W. camp guard during WWII.

For Daisy, all of the sets where she was involved were at a studio just outside of Munich, Germany. The scenes in the tunnel were her favorite although it was only half a tunnel. It looked like a whole tunnel in the film, but one side was wide open to the studio so the cameras, audio, lighting, director, and crew could capture the actors' words and movements. But there were nice little cubby holes in spots where she could curl up and relax.

Daisy liked James Garner the best because in his role as scrounger, he could scrounge up all sorts of little treats that she enjoyed.