Artistic License
In case you hadn't noticed,
details in a film "based on a true story" may not always
jibe with the facts. The Great Escape, based on the book
by Paul
Brickhill, chronicled the attempted mass escape of Allied POWs from a
specially
built German prison camp (actually Stalag Luft 3, near what is now Zagan,
Poland). In general, the
details were accurate, including the particulars of the dig, many of
the
incidents--both humorous and tragic--and the number of prisoners who
escaped or
were killed or captured. The prologue of the film duly notes, however,
that the
time was compressed, and that some of the characters were composites
for the
sake of the film (sadly, Steve McQueen's "Cooler King" was one of
them). Truth, to some degree, was sacrificed for dramatic effect. At
least,
they were up front about it.
One of my all-time favorite movies, The Sound of
Music, however, committed a whopper. The popular Rogers and
Hammerstein
musical was loosely based on "The Story of the Trapp Family Singers",
memoirs written by Maria Trapp. Time and details were greatly altered,
but
their escape?
One would assume that Captain
von Trapp, a former naval officer, would have some vague sense of
navigation.
And just for the record, they did escape from German-occupied Austria
via Italy
just before the border was closed, and eventually
came to America.
But, as inspirational as the parting shot may be (to the strains of
"Climb Every Mountain" no less), the movie depicts the good Captain
and Maria leading the children over the Alps just outside their
hometown of
Salzburg...into Germany.
Acknowledgments:
38, 39, 42, 43, 44
©
Russ Brown, 1998