Cubs Fan

25th Jun 2011

The Great Escape (1963)

Question: When Roger is explaining the escape plan, he says that Tom will run under the vorlager, the cooler, and the wire. The cooler and the wire are obvious, but what's the vorlager?

Cubs Fan

Chosen answer: Vorlage is German for "forward position," so this likely refers to either the main gate, or a machine gun nest.

Captain Defenestrator

19th Aug 2007

The Great Escape (1963)

Question: In the scenes in which the POWs use the bags inside their trousers to distribute tunnel dirt over the compound, how do they put the pins back into the bags? It seems like a pain in the butt to have to take the bags out, just to put them back in, just to take them back out, etc.

Cubs Fan

Chosen answer: The movie is based on a true story and depicts actual events. After dispersing the dirt, the POWs simply removed the bags from their pants, reinserted the pins, and put the filled bags back inside their trousers again. Of course it was a pain, but what other options did they have? Little or none. Carrying out a secret operation in a POW camp with few resources, they worked with what they had, and made what they had work.

raywest

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