Way too flabby at 168 minutes, but once this 1963 feature gets going it's good, solid stuff, directed with an unusual lack of rhetoric by John Sturges (
Bad Day at Black Rock). Steve McQueen cemented his myth as the POW who makes his break on a motorcycle, while James Coburn, Richard Attenborough, James Garner, Charles Bronson, and Donald Pleasence fill out the slow spots with sharp character work.
By
Dave Kehr
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