The Bavaria Film Studio is in the suburb of Geiselgasteig, south of Munich and is a 'forty-minute' drive from Deining where the McQueen's lived during the filming of The Great Escape, May 1962.
The map shows the layout of the Bavaria Film studio and NUMBER 11 on the map represents studio 4/5 where The Great Escape interiors were filmed. David McCallum reports that the tunnel in the film ran the whole length of the studio.
The construction of the camp in the Geiselgasteig forest commenced in February 1962.
Nobody at the Bavaria Film Studio actually knew where the original site was....HOWEVER, if you return to the Homepage and click on THE MAKING OF THE GREAT ESCAPE PART 1 video and drag along the time line you can actually see where the camp was sited (start at 8:20 and finish at 8:32).......to the left of the Studios.
If you look at the map below and go to the NUMBER 3 building and go to the left of the road. The camp was sited behind the ROLLIS WISSENS PARADE board......
It is suggested that The Great Escape 'camp' is on the LEFT hand side of the photograph, just above the words 'Bavaria Film GmbH.' You can see that there is a diagonal 'scar' of open land where the trees have not grown as much as those in the surrounding area given that it was 50 years ago when the trees were once there.......
Where is the exact location of The Great Escape Camp?
Running parallel to both the Bavaria Film Studio and the road is a footpath. Off this main footpath is this pathway that leads towards a bridge. Half way along it, on your right, you will see a 'clearing' which could have been the location of The Great Escape camp...........
( This minor pathway can be seen dissecting the 'clearing' on the above Google map)
(Road leading to the entrance of the Bavaria Film Studios)
Studio 4/5 were used for the filming of The Great Escape.
The prisoners used what was available within the compound to dig a 25-foot-deep, 348-foot-long tunnel, complete with track and trolley, air pump and lights, spliced into the camp's electrical system.
" The tunnel was wonderful because it was a big stage at Geiselgasteig. They ran the entire length of the studio. And with just one side cut open. So it was a silly looking set. It was mostly construction that you saw. But when you got close. You just saw into the tunnel with one side. And that meant that people could go flying through the tunnel on these little trolley cars with the camera hurtling alongside." (David McCallum).
"But the part of Virgil Hilts was still ambiguous. Hilts had no real personality. He was bland and he was boring. Steve knew that, given this cast, unless he came up with something interesting for this role he would blend in with the scenery......John Sturges, who was Steve's mentor, was trying to solve the problem.
As I recall Steve quit the film and rejoined it and was fired and rehired at least twice." (p.115)
The camp was located near the Bavaria Film Studio but the 'exact' set design is unsure. Apparently, four hundred trees were cut down to make a clearing so that a full-scale replica of Stalag Luft III (located in what is now Zagan near the Polish border) could be built right in the middle of the forest. The 'wall of trees in the background' would give a sense of the prison-outside-the-prison. After finishing the film, the camp would be bulldozed and the film crew would re-plant two trees for every one that had been cut down
Aerial reconnaissance photograph of Stalag Luft 3. The railway station that many escapers headed for is top right. Catalogue reference: AIR 40/229. PODCAST
These previously unseen cartoons form an amazing day-to-day diary of life in the Prisoner of War camp immortalised in the Hollywood classic The Great Escape. They were drawn in 1944 by John Bridges, an American air force serviceman being held in Germany's 'escape proof' Stalag Luft III. And they formed part of a war time log compiled just weeks after 50 allied POWs were executed on the orders of Hitler for staging the breakout which was later featured in the 1963 Steve McQueen movie.
McQueen handled props with an expertise rarely achieved by an actor. He had the drive of a perfectionist and the need to master new challenges better than anybody else.
"For good luck Steve wanted to wear the same sort of cut off sweat shirt I had accidentally fashioned for him in Never So Few, only this would be a well-worn navy blue one. If anybody were to ask me what single moment in Steve's films could be pointed to as the jump-off point for his phenomenal career, my answer would have to be Steve's (in the person of friend and stuntman Bud Ekins) jump over that fence in The Great Escape." (p.116)
"Another piece of business that evolved spontaneously was Virgil Hilts' use of a baseball and mitt."
"Steve and John disappeared into that little prison cell used in the movie, and two hours later John emerged and asked "Beady-Eyes," the prop man, to get Steve the new props." (page 116)
(Steve McQueen with Canadian Wally Floody, aka "the Tunnel King," a former POW who was actually part of the real Great Escape plan and acted as technical advisor on the film)
Garner and McQueen posing in front of a picture of the survivors of the mass escape.
In retirement, Sturges insisted that there never was much of a script for what would become his greatest triumph.
" Sturges was not the most talkative guy," but even when things got testy on location, "he didn't yell or carry on." ( Escape Artist, p.82)
'Film at its best is about reacting, not acting, he said.' (p.113)
"John was extremely patient with Steve as he struggled to find a way to make Hilts memorable. As Jim Coburn has said, "The thing was to get the film right. Steve obviously wasn't wrong because the film was a huge success. He had a special sense. He knew what was right for him and saw to it that everything was in that slot." (p.116)
"John Sturges taught him about reining in. Steve tended to overplay things, especially in comedic scenes, and John, ever the consummate director, would take him aside and quietly suggest to him, "Look, Steve, this is a minor thing but if you stay at this level throughout the film you will drive everybody out of the theatre." (p.116)
Sturges described McQueen's acting style as "reactive, like James Dean in Giant."
"Another thing John had to work on with Steve was his dislike of words. Here was an actor who was more comfortable with playing emotions than using words, and John handled him very carefully and told him that "you simply cannot stand there and just make faces. You have to speak or they won't know who you are and what you're thinking." While Steve always responded to John's direction, he remained forever partial to reacting." (page 117)
Charles Bronson was a sort of melancholy type, who had worked in a coal mine with his brother as a kid so he was a natural for Danny, the tunneler who's afraid to go back down into the tunnel stated Sturges.
Sturges and "the cast of a lifetime" - James Coburn, Steve McQueen and Charles 'Weed Soup' Bronson - outside the POW compound built for The Great Escape. Much of the film was shot in and around Bavaria Film Studios in Geiselgasteig, Germany (photo originally taken by Kathy Sturges)
" Bronson......sat around shirtless, recounting.......his grim youth in the coalfields of Pennsylvania, subsisting on weed soup."
(Escape Artist p.205)
A camera crew, including American director of photography Daniel L. Fapp (1904 - 1986) (standing, in glasses) sits on a mobile crane just outside the wire fence of a prisoner of war camp on the set of the film 'The Great Escape,' directed by John Sturges, Germany, 1963.
Sturges and his cameraman prepare a crane shot of Stalag Luft III as "Tunnel King" Wallace Floody (in white) recounts firsthand life in the POW camp. James Garner and Richard Attenborough (right foreground) look on.
The
crew
McQueen watching Sturges and Cinematographer Daniel Fapp at work.
McQueen entertaining his fellow co-stars on the set.
Call sheet of the
shooting on 7th. September 1962
Because he was dyslexic, his wife, Neile, read him the script. Wife Neile helps McQueen on his role. By 1963, he was already well known in the film industryfor altering final screenplay drafts to his own needs and talents. His intuition for what worked best for him enhanced his performances and helped to make him a star.
Steve McQueen in a studio still shot from The Great Escape.
(Entirely Up to You, Darling-Richard Attenborough page 232)
McQueen practicing with a side car.
"It came to a head when the two separate groups were lounging around in the sun during an early break from shooting. As always when time hung heavy, Steve was riding his 500cc Triumph, zooming off between the POW camp huts and returning to skid around us Brits in ever decreasing dusty circles. Finally, those piercing blue eyes hidden behind dark glasses, he came to a halt beside me and sat there, twisting the throttle provocatively. 'Wanna ride?'
Fatally, I hesitated. It was thirty years since I'd ridden pillion and, having been rushed to hospital as a result, had sworn I'd never ever do it again. But national honour was at stake here and I knew I couldn't refuse the challenge.
'You bet,' I said heartily, climbing on behind.
Although they cemented our friendship and united the cast, the fifteen minutes which followed, as I clung on for dear life, were the most terrifying I can remember."
There's a perception that Steve was anathema to screenwriters, always angling to make his parts bigger. That, in my experience, is completely untrue. In fact, he was a minimalist, forever fighting to cut lines because he knew, better than anyone, that one telling look is worth any amount of dialogue." (page 232)
Bavaria Studio Tours.....with a difference !!
(ask for Florian)