Jana J. Monji

‘The Great Escape’ and ‘Argo’ Revisited: American Exceptionalism versus Canadian Consternation

Since last year, I’ve been looking at films about war that should be remade and until the recent rise of Canadian consternation over the current presidential administration, I had not considered these three films: “The Longest Day,” “The Great Escape” and “Argo.”

There are actually three films, but I wrote a long essay last year about one: “The Longest Day.” That’s something I didn’t notice in my analysis of the film last year.

The Longest Day

The Canadian forces took Juno Beach.  Canada had been participating in the war  (1 September 1939) before the US joined in 1941. The focus of the film “The Longest Day”  is on US and British involvement although one British officer refers to “the British and Canadians up north.”

Argo

When “Argo” first came out in 2012, I did write a review, but my main concern was diversity in terms of the casting of the central real-life character, Tony Mendez and how gender and race played into more nuanced views by the Iranian revolutionaries and their potential and real hostages. Mendez’s father was of Mexican descent; his mother was of Italian and French descent. However, because his father died when he was young, he did not identify as Latino.

Argo received seven Oscar nominations and won Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Film Editing.

“Argo” was based on Antonio J. Mendez’s book, “Master of Disguise: My Secret Life in the CIA” and Joshua Bearman’s “The Great Escape: How the CIA Used a Fake Sci-Fi Flick to Rescue Americans from Tehran.”

In an article published in Politico.com, the late former president Jimmy Carter said that while it was a great drama and he hoped it would go on to win Best Film, he further stated:

The other thing that I would say was that 90 percent of the contributions to the ideas and the consummation of the plan was Canadian. And the movie gives almost full credit to the American CIA. And with that exception, the movie is very good.

And this makes sense because Carter noted: “But Ben Affleck’s character in the film was only … in Tehran a day and a half, and the main hero, in my opinion, was Ken Taylor, who was the Canadian ambassador who orchestrated the entire process.”

There was a 1981 TV film produced by the US and Canada called “Escape from Iran: The Canadian Caper,” but I couldn’t find it streaming.

The Great Escape

The 1963 American war adventure film, “The Great Escape,” starred Steve McQueen, James Garner and Richard Attenborough. Although two of the three stars are from the US and the other is British, the Great Escape itself was not led by US military men and did include Canadians. The person who served as the technical supervisor was Canadian.

The main cast includes three Americans: Steve McQueen, James Garner and Jud Taylor (25 February 1932 – 6 August 2008). McQueen, the star, plays Captain Virgil Hilts, or “The Cooler King.” Garner plays an American RAF officer named Flight Lieutenant Bob Hendley  or “The Scrounger.” Taylor plays Second Lieutenant Goff.

Other familiar faces include Charles Bronson as a Polish RAF officer, Flight Lieutenant Danny Welinski (“Tunnel King”), John Leyton as Welinski’s best friend, Flight Lieutenant Willie Dickes (co-lead in tunnel design and construction “Tunnel King”) and James Coburn as Australian Flying Officer Sedgwick who manufactures the tools used for the escape.

While the second half of the film involves the recapture of those who escaped, it briefly shows that three prisoners made it to freedom, but depicts them as British, Polish and Australian. The Polish Welinski with Dickes steal a boat and are able to board a ship to Sweden. Sedgwick goes to France and is smuggled to Spain.

In reality, none of the three escapees were from an English-speaking country. Two Norwegians worked together and escaped (Jens Müller and Per Bergsland) . One man got across occupied lands to freedom in Spain, the Dutch POW (Bram van der Stok).

There were about 1,800 POWs in the camp. Of that 600 were involved in the preparations. Of that 600, 150 were Canadian, including Wally Floody, a RCAF pilot and former minor who was one of the “Tunnel Kings” and who served as a technical advisor for the film. That means a quarter of the men involved were Canadian.

Canada was represented by New York-born actor Lawrence Montaigne  who had served in the Marine Corps, as Flying Officer Haynes. Haynes was in charge of distractions.

If it had been a US officers who escaped, I’m pretty sure there would be a film about him, especially making it all the way to Spain. Imagine what we could learn from the three people who escaped. How bad would it be to have heroes who were white, but Norwegians or Dutch. Bram van der Stok (1915-1993) was still alive when “The Great Escape” premiered.  After the war, he became a physician. According to his obituary, he joined the NASA space lab research team in Huntsville, Alabama for a while. He moved to Honolulu in 1970 where he not only practiced medicine, but he joined the US Coastguard and took part in 162 rescues. Imagine the stories he had to tell and he did tell some when he published his memoirs in the 1980s. And no one in Hollywood or the UK thought his story was worth telling?

There was a greater escape during World War II: The escape of 800 Indian POWs from Épinal, France, and 500 made it out o Nazi territory.

But perhaps that’s the problem with the so-called American exceptionalism. According to Britannica, American exceptionalism is the “idea that the United States of America is a unique and even morally superior country for historical, ideological, or religious reasons.”

Yet how can the US know how it fits into this world,  if we don’t compare it to its neighbors, Canada and Mexico. And the idea of American exceptionalism doesn’t include all US citizens. American exceptionalism is intertwined with racism.

Of course, Canada also struggled and struggles with racism. Canada may have, like Mexico, been a safe haven for African Americans escaping slavery, but there was also prejudice. For East Asians, Canada was not so welcoming. Canada also suffered from yellow perilism and incarcerated citizens of Japanese descent. They also had a Chinese exclusion act.

There are issues that we see now in the US that are related to Mexico’s role during World War II.

Mexico also had a population of ethnic Japanese, and although Mexico “refused to surrender any of its Japanese residents for internment in the United States” unlike other Latin American nations, there were forced removals.

While cinema owes Canada an apology for past representations, going forward, perhaps it is time for US citizens and residents to learn more about both neighboring countries. We have many Canadian actors in Hollywood and while it might be too early for a remake of “Argo,” a remake of “The Great Escape” is long overdue.

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