
The Great Escape
1963


“The suspense thriller of the year !”
33 votes
A group of confederate prisoners escape to Canada and plan to rob the banks and set fire to the small town of Saint Albans in Vermont. To get the lie of the land, their leader spends a few days in the town and finds he is getting drawn into its life and especially into that of an attractive widow and her son.
Director
Hugo FregoneseStatus
Released
Original Language
English
Budget
N/A
Revenue
N/A
Production Companies

With a rebel yell, I cried more more more. "This is a true story...it began on the night of September 26 1864, in a Union prison stockade at Plattsburgh, New York, not many miles from the Canadian border." Tho director Hugo Fregonese's The Raid opens with the above written statement, it's not entirely accurate. Further research into what became known as "The St. Albans Raid" is required if you want the complete and unembellished story. However, The Raid is in structure and plot significantly in line with what happened back there in 1864. Lifting from the story entitled "Affair At St. Alb…
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**_Civil War “Western” that takes place a dozen miles from the Canadian border_** In September-October, 1864, a Confederate officer (Van Heflin) coordinates a group of 21 young soldiers, mostly ex-POWs, for an attack on a prosperous town in northern Vermont. His motive isn’t just revenge, but to fund the Confederacy with desperately needed funds, as well as to divert Union troops from the South. “The Raid” (1954) was loosely based on the St. Albans Raid, the northernmost engagement of the Civil War, led by 21 years-old Lt. Bennett H. Young and organized by George Sanders, a Montreal-bas…
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