John Sturges
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No one who remembers "Stalag 17" will have to guess at the number that's on the front of the hen house, and no veteran of "The Great Escape" will fail to recognize the contours of the farm, complete with barbed wire fencing, barking dogs, and a suspicious Mr. Tweedy checking the locks and muttering about what the chickens are up to.
What follows is a tribute to The Great Escape, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and even a quick glimpse of Star Trek.
The first full-length feature from Aardman Studios, creators of the absurdly dry Wallace & Gromit shorts as well as the sublime Creature Comforts, Chicken Run is essentially a remake of The Great Escape except here it's corpulent hens looking for freedom from a muddy and dank egg farm in the British outlands.
This is The Great Escape with chickens, and herein lie the limitations.
If the overall storyline of Chicken Run strikes a vague chord of familiarity, that's because it borrows loosely from the classic World War 2 adventure, The Great Escape.
As you can tell, just trying to describe “Chicken Run” can put one into the state of euphoric silliness that must have engulfed Park and Lord when they first thought of redoing “The Great Escape” with silicone-and-Plasticine chickens.
War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)
Directed by Matt Reeves
influenced by The Great Escape (1963)
Plot Visuals
The final act is derivative to a fault (think “The Great Escape” or “The Grand Illusion” with a few more big explosions), but the apes’ perseverance freshens up the formula.
As in episodes one through three of the “Star Wars” franchise, Reeves is operating in revisionist-prequel mode, filling in the calamitous backstory that leads to a depressing present reality — except that in this case, he’s less concerned with mythology, approaching this chapter as an elaborate homage to such manly classics as “The Great Escape,” “The Bridge on the River Kwai” and “Apocalypse Now,” starring monkeys.
"War for the Planet of the Apes" references many films - "The Great Escape," "Apocalypse Now" and "The Searchers" to name a few - but its larger grasp is historical, a new civilization forming as an old one wanes.
“We watched The Great Escape.
“War” follows their long journey through the woods until it shifts in its second half to a riveting prison camp thriller, with heavy overtones of previous war films, from “Apocalypse Now” to “The Great Escape.”
There’s even a slice of “The Great Escape” thrown in as the knuckle-dragging prisoners scheme to outwit their upright captors.
There they see John Sturges' Marooned (1969).
In later scenes in which Cuaron suggests a possible inspiration for “Gravity,” the family goes to see John Sturges’ sci-fi thriller “Marooned” (1969) at the local movie theater.
When the family packs itself off to a neighborhood moviehouse, the feature playing is “Marooned” (1969), a film whose plot is remarkably similar to that of Cuarón’s previous release, the Oscar-winning “Gravity.”
In the middle of Roma, we see some boys (including Pepe, a character who seems to be a version of young Cuarón himself) convince their grandmother to let them see Marooned, the 1969 lost-in-space sci-fi flick starring Gregory Peck and Gene Hackman.
Plunging into the Meta level, we recognize allusions to Cuarón’s 2013 film, Gravity , as Cleo and the children watch the 1969 sci-fi blockbuster, Marooned.
There’s even a nod to Gravity in the family’s visit to the cinema to see John Sturges’ Marooned.
The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Directed by Antoine Fuqua
influenced by The Magnificent Seven (1960), The Great Escape (1963)
Music Plot
Become a fan on Facebook Follow on Twitter Review by Mark Dujsik | September 22, 2016 The distinct rhythm of Elmer Bernstein's timeless theme to 1960's The Magnificent Seven can be heard amidst the score of this new iteration of the story.
Overall, “The Magnificent Seven” is a worthy tribute to the original 1960 classic, and it’s a great ride for fans of action or westerns.
That's because the plot of The Magnificent Seven already powered a previous Western starring Yul Brenner, Eli Wallach and Steve McQueen that hit in 1960, and that movie additionally was lifted from Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai released in 1954.
It's called The Magnificent Seven, which marks it as a remake of a remake - the 1960 original Western lifted its plot from the 1954 Akira Kurosawa film Seven Samurai.
John Sturges, director of 1960's The Magnificent Seven , also made – deep breath – Bad Day at Black Rock , Gunfight at the OK Corral , The Great Escape and Ice Station Zebra among other classics.
John Sturges, director of 1960's The Magnificent Seven , also made – deep breath – Bad Day at Black Rock , Gunfight at the OK Corral , The Great Escape and Ice Station Zebra among other classics.
The Ridiculous 6 (2015)
Directed by Frank Coraci
influenced by The Magnificent Seven (1960)
Themes Plot
The title itself is a nod to John Sturges' genre landmark "The Magnificent Seven" (also referenced by Quentin Tarantino's upcoming homage "The Hateful Eight").
Anyway, the film from frequent Sandler collaborator Frank Coraci (“The Wedding Singer,” “The Waterboy,” “Click”) is a Western, in theory, because it takes place in the American West and it’s a knock-off of “The Magnificent Seven.”
"The Ridiculous Six" (really, really not to be confused with "The Magnificent Seven" or Tarantino's upcoming "The Hateful Eight") arrived Friday on Netflix; you've already heard about Native Americans walking off set because they were being disrespected, which was no surprise.
Mired in pre-release controversy over its supposedly offensive characterizations of Native Americans — which drove some extras to abandon the project — Sandler’s first of four exclusive features for Netflix turns out to be distasteful in every regard, an abysmal riff on “The Magnificent Seven” in which hoary stereotypes and oater clichés are exploited for equally groan-worthy gags.
Ostensibly a spoof of “The Magnificent Seven” and other classic frontier epics (as well as a conveniently timed appetizer before Quentin Tarantino’s forthcoming “The Hateful Eight”), “The Ridiculous 6” poses no challenge to “Blazing Saddles” in that particular department, and indeed might as well have been titled “Western Movie,” given its resemblance to the barrel-bottom-scraping spoofs of the Friedberg/Seltzer school.
Spanning a punishing two-hour run-time (only eight minutes shorter than The Magnificent Seven, but with several more references to "weenie pee-pee"), the adventure takes many detours.
The toys want out, and the movie promptly becomes an homage to escape films like "The Great Escape."
The film’s most inspired section is a brilliant, thrilling Woody-led version of “The Great Escape,” with a junkyard climax that may actually be too scary for sensitive little ones.
How does a G-rated family film become a sophisticated combination of “The Great Escape” and “Animal Farm” without going over young people’s heads?
What follows is a massively complicated, and ever escalating escape attempt (with nods to classics like The Great Escape), which culminates in an extraordinary sequence inside a giant trash disposal device.
It becomes a straight-up prison-camp escape picture -- modeled very consciously on classic films like "Stalag 17," "The Great Escape" and "Cool Hand Luke," right down to the music -- with the evil warden taking the form of a good-ol'-boy stuffed animal named Lots-o'-Huggin' Bear (voiced to perfection by Ned Beatty).
Better to enjoy Toy Story 3 as a well-executed action yarn, a sort of cartoon version of The Great Escape , even if the film’s admittedly thrilling set pieces—like the opening, which features Woody and Buzz chasing a thieving Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head and trying to save a runaway train filled with hilariously squealing toy trolls—are more referential than satiric, feeling as if they’ve sprung less from the imagination of a young boy than from the minds of grown men with much affection for the collected works of George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Michael Bay, and Peter Jackson.
All Is Lost (2013)
Directed by J.C. Chandor
influenced by The Old Man and the Sea (1958)
Characters Plot
Spencer Tracy played a Cuban fisherman in the 1958 The Old Man and the Sea, but he was on land with others at the beginning and the end.
A nerve-wracking reimagining of Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, All Is Lost’s grandiose portrait of honour in struggle is a lucid and indomitable celebration of the endurance of the human spirit that makes for one hell of a ride.
Maybe not in the same minimalist style — but, between Castaway , Life of Pi , The Perfect Storm and The Old Man and the Sea (fun fact: Spencer Tracy was 57 when he made that; Redford’s 77), these are familiar waters.
The film is being compared with John Sturges' 1958 adaptation of Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, but over the years Sturges' film has become ripe for parody with its booming Dimitri Tiomkin score and a script that has Spencer Tracy holding extended conversations both with himself and the marlin he is trying to catch.
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019)
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
influenced by The Great Escape (1963), Ice Station Zebra (1968)
Visuals
When someone states that he heard that Rick was up for the Steve McQueen part in the great WWII flick The Great Escape, we’re treated to an actual scene from the film, with Rick appearing as Hilts instead of the King of Cool.
He says he was up for McQueen's part in The Great Escape (1963).
There are flashbacks, including an amusing and possibly embellished vignette to a run-in Cliff had with Bruce Lee (Mike Moh); an alt-reality scene from The Great Escape starring Rick in the Steve McQueen role; a narrator who pops up startlingly to give a clarification early on, then disappears again until the end; one- or two-scene appearances by a cavalcade of actors — Kurt Russell, Timothy Olyphant, Luke Perry, Bruce Dern, Michael Madsen, Damian Lewis, Dakota Fanning, Rumer Willis, Scoot McNairy, Margaret Qualley, etc., etc. — some based on real people, some not.
One of the things that ...Hollywood does best is to invisibly drift into flashbacks and fantasies, virtually none of which are clearly marked out: only Rick's daydreams about the time when he was in contention for Steve McQueen's role in The Great Escape for about ten seconds are obviously marked out as separate from the overall flow of images, and that's primarily because the digital witchery used to place DiCaprio into the 1963 film isn't quite ready for prime time.
Reference-spotters, in particular, will have a field day, and Tarantino has a lot of fun with film and TV history, inventing his own Rick Dalton-starring movies with real-life equivalents, as well as using some flawless effects work to insert DiCaprio into real-life films and movies such as The Great Escape or an episode of The FBI. (It's worth pointing out that there's a wealth of trivia related to each of these moments, such as the fact that Dalton was at least partly based on Burt Reynolds, who DiCaprio replaces in the FBI episode).
Tarantino and his editor Fred Raskin, along with the help of cinematographer Robert Richardson’s 35mm photography, coolly craft a film that takes numerous tangents to show admiration for works like The Great Escape (1963), C.C. and Company (1970), and FBI (which ran from 1965 to 1974) without ever feeling superfluous, despite a daunting 161-minute run time.
You might see Ad Astra as an attempt to revive an archaic genre, nail-biting space adventure in the grand style—like Alfonso Cuarón’s film, it carries echoes of John Sturges’ 1969 Marooned.
Consistent with the past decade’s run of high-profile space thrillers – including Gravity (2013), Interstellar (2014), The Martian (2015), and First Man (2018) – as well as the influential “NASA procedurals” Countdown (1967) and Marooned (1969), Gray’s film is absorbed with the process by which humans are hurled across thousands, millions, or billions of miles of airless nothingness.
That Kurosawa's film was a Japanese interpretation of the cowboys-and-Indians Western genre, which echoed back to spawn John Sturges's "The Magnificent Seven" (1960), is evidence of Kurosawa's deep assimilation of an American genre to a seemingly esoteric Japanese subject matter.
Comparison, too, can be made to both “Seven Samurai” and “The Magnificent Seven” as each of Arthur’s followers has some special skill that they bring to the equation and to the fight.
The Magnificent Seven is a Kurosawa knockoff, but an entertaining and memorable one.
It's sporadically rousing and the script (by David Franzoni, who wrote "Gladiator") is occasionally clever, but it's not well directed, the casting creates few sparks and it comes off as an uninspired remake of "The Magnificent Seven" in medieval dress.
First Man (2018)
Directed by Damien Chazelle
influenced by The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Marooned (1969)
Themes Dialogue
John Sturges’ similarly wonky but comparatively turgid 1969 feature Marooned is an obvious touchstone, and viewers who are not space exploration junkies or NASA history enthusiasts may be a bit lost at times.
His resemblance to Armstrong isn’t great and his utterances of such famous lines as “The Eagle has landed” and “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” can easily be compared to the real thing via YouTube.
A spot of China ex Machina is forgivable to the long memoried, who recall how the Russians stepped up to the plate in Marooned (1969).
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)
Directed by Brad Bird
influenced by The Great Escape (1963)
Accomplished with very little dialogue and unexpected humor under the circumstances, it's an escape from a Russian prison by Cruise's Ethan Hunt (first seen throwing a ball against a wall, in likely homage to Steve McQueen in The Great Escape) orchestrated electronically from the outside by the one other holdover from the last film's team, Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg).
For instance, the film opens with a scene from "The Sting," followed by ones from "Get Smart," "The Great Escape," "The Fugitive," the "Bourne" adventures, and a penultimate sequence from both "Goldfinger" and "Monsters, Inc."
There’s a lot to admire here about how the Duffers blend their converging storylines into a propulsive The Great Escape-meets-Children of Men mashup sequence.
This one is still focused on kidnapping children, but this time in the style of The Great Escape.
Robin realizes they can use The Great Escape as a template (“I like Dick”), but they need to get inside the barracks.
When we first meet him he’s reading “The Old Man and the Sea,” and by the end of the film he’s gone through “Don Quixote” to “Invisible Man,” and I suppose those function as narrative cues.
McCall’s in the middle of “The Old Man and the Sea” when we first see him, but if you think the only literary pummeling The Equalizer has to offer is purely metaphorical, just you wait.
Later, we see Robert standing on the beach, overlooking the sea; it's literally The Old Man and the Sea, just like that book he was reading earlier.
The Hateful Eight (2015)
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
influenced by The Magnificent Seven (1960)
Music
The “roadshow” version, available only in 70 mm during the film’s two-week early engagement, showcases the director’s love for sweeping landscape shots and makes the most effective use of Morricone’s evocative score (which recalls his own work for Sergio Leone and Elmer Bernstein’s classic The Magnificent Seven).
Once fortified in a montage reminiscent of “The Seven Samurai” and its Western variant, “The Magnificent Seven,” this “town of death” becomes the site of an amazing 40-minute pitched battle that utilizes sword, arrow, spear, explosive, slingshot and ‒ here’s a new one ‒ burning bull.
Inglourious Basterds (2009)
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
influenced by The Great Escape (1963), The Magnificent Seven (1960)
Plot Themes Visuals Characters
Imagine a version of “The Great Escape” in which John Sturges decided to have Steve McQueen, cool personified, and his ragtag multinational group of breakout artists on-screen for 45 minutes or so, focusing the rest of the plot on the briefly seen Nazis killed in a drive-by at a French cafe after the Allied escape.
Where “Defiance’’ was a dramatic slog hamstrung by its faithfulness to history, though, “Inglourious Basterds’’ is just the opposite: a manically playful revenge fantasia made from the spare parts of Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns and strapping World War II action flicks like “The Great Escape’’ and Enzo Castellari’s 1978 “The Inglorious Bastards,’’ from which Tarantino has mangled his title and much of his plot.
Judging from the previews, and knowing Tarantino´s sense of style, I figured we´d get a film close to "Kelly´s Heroes," "The Great Escape," or "Stalag 17." Granted, he may have stolen bits and pieces of that technique, but in no way does it come close to those great films.
In an impeccably constructed opening sequence as indebted to spaghetti Westerns as it is to WWII classics like The Great Escape , a French farmer suspected of harboring Jews (Denis Menochet) is interrogated by an SS officer, Col. Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz).
Til Schweiger is briefly wonderful as a hulking ex-Nazi who has joined the Basterds - it’s the old James Coburn part from “The Magnificent Seven’’ - and Hollywood vet Rod Taylor (“The Birds’’) drops in as Winston Churchill.
It's not as good as The Right Stuff, but it's light years ahead of 1969's Marooned, which, prophetically, offered up a similar story as science fiction but was so very, very dull.
With its grace and economy of narrative, "Apollo 13" resembles those grand old military exploits - "The Guns of Navarone," "The Dirty Dozen," "The Great Escape" and "Seven Days in May."