It's about time I found out what's so great about Steve McQueen. Here he is the all-American tough guy who can escape from anywhere at any time; I don't know why the Germans didn't execute him on sight. Charles Bronson puts in a fairly typical stony performance as the claustrophobic tunnel digger. I prefer his efforts in the spaghetti westerns. This was a Richard Attenborough segue from Brighton Rock, and he does indeed look fifteen years older.
The movie makes out that an Australian made it to safety by bicycling and walking to Spain. According to Wikipedia Bram van der Stok was a Dutch pilot in the RAF. Oh well. I didn't think much of the actors' Australian accent anyway.
Overall it's not bad as a bunch of vignettes about how the POWs got stuff done, their bravery and all that glorification of war stuff.
Parked at #111 in the IMDB top-250.