warfilmman
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Great Escape - Exclusive interview with cast member
About 4 years ago I exchanged e-mails with the actor Lawrence Montaigne who played Haynes in the classic 1963 movie, here are my questions and his answers.
Paul
Question 1) - The tunnel filming. Correct me if I'm wrong, the interiors which I believe were filmed in Munich, were where the underground bit of the tunnel were built: - the entrance bit, the passing areas, and the bit just below the exit. Also I guess this is where the entrance bit inside the hut was built (were James Coburn and then William Russell sat checking names off as the POWs entered the tunnel). Now (and this is my guess), i'm assuming that the tunnel entrance did not lead to a tunnel, but to a space big enough for you actors to hide in while the sequences were shot. I'm guessing too that where the tunnel comes up near the tree line was filmed in Bavaria, with again just a space below the "hole" just big enough for you to hide. Thus meaning that the tunnel was in fact several different sets?
Answer - You are correct. We shoot scenes out of context, different locations, and then the editor puts them together to make it look as if it was done in sequence.
Question 2) - Also do you recall how long a section of tunnel was built? If this is all different from what I guess perhaps you can tell me.
Answer - The tunnel was almost as long as the sound stage, I guess about fifty to seventy-five feet. One side was open so the camera could follow the action as the actors made their way through the tunnel.
Question 3) - Was the prison bit where Nigel Stock (Cavendish) comes in after he is interogated by the Gestapo and talks to you a set, or an actual building somewhere? - it looks very real!!!
Answer - It was most definitely a set.
Question 4) - It appears in the film as though Haynes and Nimmo (Tom Adams) are supposed to be friends, was this true in reality?
Answer - Tom and I were supposed to be a twosome but as the film progressed, that concept was never developed. And of course, I escaped and Tom never did. We never did develop a friendship outside the studio.
Question 5) - Also was there a feeling amongst the supporting cast - you Tom Adams, William Russell, Robert Desmond (who played Griff the Tailor, and of whom I can find no mention of after 1965!!!), Judd Taylor and Angus Lennie of unity, or did the whole cast from McQueen down get along well. I read that John Sturges always chose as good a supporting cast as he did stars for his films. Personally I think its the supporting cast that make the film so special.
Answer - Fortunately, everyone got along on the set. In the beginning, the Brits stayed among themselves, as did the Germans and the American. But we were in that camp for four months before moving onto location so it was natural that the barriers were dropped after a few days. Unlike most films, the A.D. did not let us stay home when we were not scheduled to shoot. We had to be on the set six days a week for the entire shoot because Sturges wanted the actors there in case he was inspired to use us in a scene or in the background.
Question 6 - In researching the Battle of Britain film, I found out that the German actors did not socialise with the British actors. Did the actors playing guards, ferrets etc socialise with you POWs or did you keep seperate during filming?
Answer - See above.
Question 7) - It appears on film that a whole replica camp was built, do you recall if it was complete with 4 fenced sides and complete huts, or was it half a set, with flat 2D huts etc in the background?
Answer - The area where the camp was built was actually a dense forest behind the studio which was leveled to build the camp. The huts were complete on all sides as was the barbed wire fence around the entire camp. This gave the director the ability to shoot from any angle without having to cheat.
Question 8) - Another thing, I heard from Angus Lennie, is that as he recalled for the filming in the camp, none of you were told whether upon escaping whether your character would be captured, killed or escape. Was this true?.
Answer - My guess is that Angus left filming half way through as his character was killed, climbing over the wire, and perhaps he didn't know what was happening, but that the script was finished. One week into the shooting, Steve decided he didn't like his role in the script and we shut down for a week while a writer came in from California to rectify his grievance. At that time, I had signed a contract for only five weeks since in the original script I didn't escape. But when the revisions came down, much to my surprise, I got out of the camp as a German soldier (probably because I speak the language) and eventually I ran nineteen weeks on the shoot.
Question 9) - An odd question this, don't answer it if you don't want to. It is rumoured that there was a very bad feeling on set between David McCallum and Charles Bronson, due to the entanglement over Jill Ireland. The fact that in only the scene where Big X talks to all the principle characters, do Bronson and McCallum appear together on screen may back this up?
Answer - Charlie and I go back to the early fifties when we did a film called Bloodhounds of Broadway at Fox. Also, I had my kid sister, fourteen at the time, and Sturges' daughter, the same age, on the set almost every day. Charlie was a self appointed baby-sitter, telling the kids stories, playing games with them and keeping them amused. If there was any friction between Charlie and David, I didn't get it. David's marriage was on the rock when he arrived in Munich. Jill and Charlie took up a friendship on the set that no one questioned because of the environment we were in. In fact, Jill was a very friendly person and chatted and socialized with almost all the people on the set. Friction? Not from where I was standing.
Question 10) - In a British TV interview with James Coburn, he said that all the actors were invited to a dinner with the real Stalag Luft III escapers, and that you were all made honorary members of the real Escape association, and were given a tie each with a barbed wire motif - did you get one?
Answer - Someone owes me a friggen tie and dinner!
Question 11) - Were the indoor or outdoor scenes shot first?
Answer - We jumped around according to the weather. Nice days we worked outdoors and when it clouded over (which it does quite often in Munich) we went indoors.
Question 12) - Did you all hang around and watch all the scenes being filmed, or were you employed for different lengths of time. I'm wondering if you got to witness any of the motorbike sequence being filmed!!
Answer - As I said before, while in the camp we were required to be on the set every day. When we moved to Fussen, those who escaped were again required to be on the set every day. I was with Richard Attenborough the morning they shot the motorcycle jump that stuntman, Bud Ekins, did so professionally.
Question 13 - One last thing, did you have an idea at the time of just how big a film The Great Escape was going to be, and just how hugely popular it is still, or was it just another job? I understaand too, that you appeared in a few episodes of Hogan's Heroes, do you think your Great Escape pedigree was part of the reason they chose you for the series?
Answer - I only did one episode of Hogan's Heroes and in that I played a German. I doubt anyone on HH gave a rat's ass whether or not I appeared in The Great Escape.
Did I think The Great Escape was going to be destined for greatness? To be honest, I'd been living in Europe for the past six years. I didn't know most of the American actors with whom we were working. I knew ****ie, and Donald, and James; all English. Hannes Messemer was a close friend of my German wife. And Judd Taylor and I appeared in a production of Mr. Roberts at the Player's Ring Theatre in Hollywood back in 1951.
I guess people more astute than I could have predicted the popularity and longevity that The Great Escape enjoys today. Me? I was as happy as a clam to be working with so many greats.
Question 14) - Do you have any other particular memories, anecdotes or funny stories from filming?
Answer - Yeah, but I doubt that you're gonna live long enough for me to tell them all to you. The experience of doing The Great Escape was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for an actor. I've always said that every actor should have a Great Escape in his resume. Sturges was a cinematic master and I learned much from him. Gene Ruggiero was the editor and although he cut out some of my very best scenes, he made that film tick. Bernstein's music was masterful. And what can I say about the acting? You're right; the secondary parts were as important as the principles and there wasn't a lapse or dull moment in the entire three hours.
Last edited by warfilmman, 2/16/2005, 2:49 pm
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2/12/2005, 9:35 pm
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warfilmman
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Re: Great Escape - Exclusive interview with cast member
After getting back the answers from Lawrence, I then e-mailed two further questions:
Question 1) - Do you recall where the uniforms came from? I'm intrigued as to whether the mix of Army (khaki) and RAF (blue/grey) battledress uniforms, which is quite correct for a POW camp, was planned carefully, or happened more by chance as you all helped yourself to a big pile of uniforms. My guess is that they were planned beforehand.
Answer - Most of the uniforms were brought from the United States, England and Germany. The costumes for the principles, of course, came from the U.S. Then, the costume people spent time in England scrounging up costumes for the British contingent and finally, going to German costumers for the uniforms for the German soldiers. So there wasn't really only one source of costumes for everyone in the film.
Question 2) - You mentioned a scene "our best one" that was cut from the final print, would ou be so kind as to elaborate on it for me?
Answer - Hi Paul: Well, in going over your questions I realize that you sure have opened up a can of worms. Let me tell you what Bud Ekins once told me. Bud was the guy who did the spectacular jump doubling Steve McQueen in "The Great Escape." We were working on a film called "Escape to Witch Mountain",(directed by an Englishan, John Hough) and one evening, after work, he and I decided to tip a few after dinner. When we were quite sh**faced, he said, "Ya know, if they left in all the scenes you had in the film, you'd be where Bronson and Coburn are today." That's a bit of hindsight but it well might have been the truth.
Now to the part about what was cut from the film. I had three distinct scenes that were filmed but that never appeared in the final cut. The first one occurred just after I had the fight scene with Coburn over the jacket so Bronson and Leyton could attempt to escape with the Russian prisoners. Robert Relyea, the associate producer, was directing this particular scene. I was supposed to walk along the compound looking for a way to get out when I see the two Roys, Jensen and Sickner, (two of the best stuntmen out of Hollywood) standing by the side of the building. Jensen has a cane. As I approach, I nod to the two Roys and Jensen hands the other end of the cane to Sickner. I take and running leap, jump onto the cane as they catapult me into the air, up onto the roof. (Yeah, in a pig's ass!!!) A few scenes later, you see me jump from the roof of the hut into a pile of branches on back of a truck that was about to leave the compound. That was the only thing of this sequence that remained in the film.
When Bob Relyea was directing this scene, he wanted "Pappy" Heyward to double me but I was in one of my macho periods and I assured Bob that I could handle the stunt. The Roys and I rehearsed the action perhaps twenty or thirty times because the timing had to be flawless. I didn't realize that such a trick would usually be done by a circus performer and here I was trying to perfect it in a few tries. In order to get my balance on the cane I had to reach out and steady myself against the building, all the while being catapulted skyward. But there was one objective that I couldn't seem to master. The roof had an overhang of about eighteen inches and each time I was airborne, I crashed headlong into the overhang! Then there was the logistics of putting the action together with the movement of the camera that was on a boom and moving with me every step of the way. After some twenty or thirty takes, Bob Relyea was getting impatient and I was getting one giant-sized headache from hitting the roof overhang. The scene never appeared in the film.
Some time after the escape, there was a scene in which I am being pursued and I take refuge under a bridge. (I don't remember how the Germans came to chase me when I was in a German uniform. Whatever.) I take off my helmet and begin to burn my paper in order not to be captured as a spy. Then, there appears a couple of German soldiers at the far end of the tunnel. I make a run for it and as I clear the mouth of the tunnel, Roy Jenson, dressed in a German uniform, takes a flying leap from the top of the bridge and just as he is about to land on me, I turn and throw a punch and he collapses to the ground as the other soldiers capture me. Okay, so you've got the picture and again it is a stunt that takes perfect timing because if I don't throw the punch at just the right moment with Roy airborne, the whole stunt goes down the hopper. Now, you've got to know that Roy is wearing a vest under his uniform and a wire is attached to the vest and the other end of the wire is tied off to the bumper of a car. When Roy reaches the end of that wire when he is airborne, he drops like a sack of manure. Theoretically, this stunt should have looked spectacular and we did it a number of times until Roy could barely walk with all the trauma to his person. I never saw the outtakes but the scene never appeared in the film. You never know how I get captured but you see me in the next scene in the cell with Cavandish.
Now, that scene in the cell was a much longer scene in which I break down and cry because I don't know what is going to happen to us and I am scared. It was quite a good scene and I was really sorry that it never made the final cut.
So you see, I really had quite an active role in the film but it never made it to the screen. At first I was greatly disappointed but when one considers that the first cut of the film ran some eight hours, it is easy to see that something had to go. And naturally John Sturges is not going to cut any of Steve McQueen or James Garner; they are the meat and potatoes of the film. So much of the stuff that was shot of me did not make it in the final cut. C'est la vie.
Good god, Paul, you've got me talking about things that happened forty years ago! Well, I hope this gives you an idea of what it was like working on such a great project. I hear stories all the time about actors who claim that they were left on the cutting room floor and I always say, "Yeah, sure." And here I am, telling you the same thing. Take it for what it's worth. I don't have any bad feelings about not becoming a star. I can tell you one thing; I had a ball working on The Great Escape and all the other films I did. I wouldn't trade it in for all the money in the world.
Thanks for taking the time and I hope I answered some of your questions.
Best regards, Lawrence
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2/12/2005, 10:59 pm
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GaryStiegers
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Re: Great Escape - Exclusive interview with cast member
Fantastic stuff - thanks very much.
I saw the Great Escape in the theatre when it first came out, I was about 7 or 8. It has always been a favorite of mine.
Wow I wish the original 8 hour version Lawrence mentioned was available!!!
Gary S
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2/13/2005, 2:39 pm
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TCUNC76
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Re: Great Escape - Exclusive interview with cast member
TC reporting in Sir:
Paul, wow that was excellent and really enjoyed that very much. Do you have a copy of the book , "The Longest Tunnel"? Can't remember the author but it adds much to the original Brickhill book. On the new release of the DVD The Great Escape, there is a great documentary on the making of the film. Its from the History Channel's "History vs Hollywood" series. Its gives many details on the making of the film and how it got made. The Channel Four documentary that comes with the extra's is outstanding as well and deals with what really happened to the fifty who were shot by the Gestpo. Great interview Paul.
TC !
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2/15/2005, 4:59 am
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