Oh boy, let's set the record straight on a few things. My father was IN THIS CAMP FOR ALMOST A YEAR, having been a B24 copilot going down over Hungary. He wrote a diary about his experience.
https://medium.com/@scottvern/a-world-war-ii-bomber-pilots-crash-and-tale-of-survival-ccfce7103ac
1) This is one war movie that GETS IT RIGHT IN MOST RESPECTS. You are reviewing as though its another fictionalized war movie. I've been to the camp (Zagan, Poland, with rebuilt barrack and nice museum), and seen "Tom, Dick, and Harry".
2) Ok, the Steve McQueen part was fiction. The escape happened in the British sector, which was separated from my father and the other Americans. The escape happened just before my Dad got there, fun and games over, grim repercussions for escapees. The Ives "going over the wire" part was an amalgam of many that went stir-crazy, rushed the fence, got shot.
3) The joking/smirking mood of the camp was largely true, part of the commendable coping mechanism of the Allies. You can bet there were wisecracks and Betty Grable pinups galore. The POWs were immensely helped by letters and even parcels from loved ones at home. But the camp had plays, libraries, baseball teams, so it wasn't altogether grim. The worst part was that food was running out, we were saved by Red Cross parcels (this largely after the movie's timeframe). This film also shows the moral boost supported by POW ingenuity and hope (all true). Unlike most war movies, not a "shoot-em-up", more a thinking man's survival guide.
4) You might say that German efficiency was at work here, they perhaps thinking the Brits/Yanks etc were part of their people, well-intended treatments (yet declining at war's end, overridden by Gestapo and SS "punishments of incompetent Luftwaffe" after embarrassing escapes). It was actually rather good fortune to be in a Stalag Luft camp (officers only for starters). My Dad's cousin was another flyboy who died in a Japanese prison camp...quite grim there.
5) The really interesting part was that the camp was run by Luftwaffe, who respected our Air Force (and knew they had lost the war, unlike the hated and competing Gestapo and SS). The Luftwaffe were reluctant to brutalize the prisoners, knowing they would soon be held to account. Eventually, high SS officer Berger followed suit, telling a vengeful Hitler that we held 1.4 million German prisoners (about a 4:1 ratio), so that harsh POW treatment was not smart. Ironically, Berger (who naturally is hated as an instrument of the Holocaust), is probably responsible for saving our POWs at war's end (he freed up hoarded Red Cross parcels, made sure hundreds of thousands of POWs were protected from Hitler's madness...see my article)
https://medium.com/@scottvern/stalag-iii-prison-guard-popeye-and-the-good-germans-cbba4c4f31c1
6) If you take away McQueen's gratuitous (yet thrilling) motorcycle exploits, most of the other characters really existed in some form. After all, it was based upon POW Paul Brickhill's book. You need to respect the guys that actually went through all this.
7) Of course, the movie benefitted from having an all-star cast, many at early stages of their careers (much like Magnificent Seven). Coburn, McCollum, Bronson, Pleasance may have been relatively cheap secondary cast, McQueen, Garner, Attenborough the box office stars.
8) The recent series "Masters of the Air" did fictionalize the forced march of Stalag Luft 3, winter '45. No, Elvis (Austin Butler) didn't escape the march (suicide, under orders not to), no, droves of prisoners were not killed in a German strafing (Berger had made a deal with our POW Generals Vanaman and Spivey to protect our guys). Yes, 14th Armored Division liquidated a few SS nuts and freed over 110,000 POWs at Moosburg, Patton giving a rousing speech to our emaciated guys a few days later. Berger & Patton wanted to unite an allied/German force (sans Hitler) against the Soviets, Ike/Churchill not having it (see movie "Patton" which largely gets it right also).
9) I've watched the movie perhaps 10x, it always brings tears to my eyes. My father's 451st bomb group (many of whom were in that camp) still holds reunions every year. The German guard "Popeye" also brings tears. He was perhaps the prototype for Sgt. Schultz, but he's responsible for saving MANY POW lives (if not all of them...by getting reluctant Mayors to house thousands of POWs in churches or factories during freezing forced march, also negotiating trade of Red Cross cigarettes for bread). Popeye is written about fondly in many a POW journal.
10) If you're going to go off on a German prison camp dramatization, choose "Hogan's Heroes". My father thought THAT was silly. What's next, a scathing review of largely true 2019 "Midway"?
https://medium.com/@scottvern/midway-a-review-of-emmerichs-2019-film-95a5d6012ea1
