J R R Tolkien - The Young Ones TV - Jiddu Krishnamurti - Donalyn Miller - The Colditz Story 1954 - Job 19:20 - Kurt Cobain - The First Great Escape TV - Colditz: The Legend TV - The Great Escape 1963 - The Rise and Fall of El Chapo TV - America’s Greatest Prison Breaks TV - Secrets of War TV - After Dark My Sweet 1990 - Quick Change 1990 - Le Deuxieme Souffle 1966 - Sewers of Gold 1979 - House of Cards US 2013-2018 - Mysteryquest: Devil’s Island TV - Unsolved Mysteries TV - Escape from Alcatraz: Real Story TV - Alcatraz Breakout: New Evidence TV - Codes & Conspiracies: Alcatraz TV - Alcatraz: Defying the Rock TV - Secrets of the Underground TV - Mysteries of the Missing: The Men Who Beat Alcatraz TV - Alcatraz Escape: The Lost Evidence TV - Paul Foot - Mystery Investigator: Olly Steads TV - Prison Break: Killers on the Run TV - 1944: Should We Bomb Auschwitz? TV - Damian Lewis: Spy Wars TV - We’re No Angels 1954 - History’s Greatest Mysteries TV - Escaping Polygamy TV - Storyville TV - The UnXplained with William Shatner TV - Red Dwarf TV - Great Escapes with Morgan Freeman TV - Broadmoor: For the Criminally Insane TV -
Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisoned by the enemy, don’t we consider it his duty to escape? ... If we value the freedom of mind and soul, if we’re partisans of liberty, then it’s our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can! J R R Tolkien
[boys board getaway red bus] Right on. I’m aboard the freedom bus heading for Good-Time City. And I haven’t even paid my fair! ... Yes, yes, girls like Una Stubbs. What’s the difference? They’ll be plenty of chicks for these tigers on the road to the Promised Land. This is it! It’s really happening! Who needs qualifications? Who cares about Thatcher? Unemployment: we can do exactly whatever we want to do. And do you know why? Because we’re young ones. Bachelor boys. Crazy, mad, wild, big-bottomed anarchists! Look out, Cliff! [red bus tips over cliff and explodes] Phew! That was close! The Young Ones, Summer Holiday, BBC 1984
And the idea of ourselves is our escape from the fact what we really are. Jiddu Krishnamurti, What Are You Doing With Your Life
Reading changes your life. Reading unlocks worlds unknown or forgotten, taking travellers around the world and through time. Reading helps you escape the confines of school and pursue your own education. Through characters – the saints and the sinners, real or imagined – reading shows you how to be a better human being. Donalyn Miller, The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Ready in Every Child
There will be no escape unless you wish to die. The Colditz Story 1954 starring John Mills & Christopher Rhodes & Lionel Jeffries & Bryan Forbes & Guido Lorraine & Anton Diffring & Eric Portman & Frederick Valk & Denis Shaw & Ian Carmichael et al, director Guy Hamilton, German
You have been blacklisted all of you as enemies of Germany. ibid. Commandant
Ah so, a tunnel. ibid. German
I am escaped with the skin of my teeth. Job 19:20
We’re so trendy we can’t even escape ourselves. Kurt Cobain
This is the incredible story of a group of Allied officers attempting the impossible: to break out from one of Germany’s most brutal and secure prisoner of war camps. They spent nine frantic months digging a tunnel with improvised tools, facing asphyxiation and the threat of being buried alive. The First Great Escape, National Geographic 2015
The further the men dug the less oxygen there was to breathe. ibid.
Their daring and inventive escape remains an inspirational example of courage and persistence in the face of adversity. ibid.
It was the prisoner of war camp no-one was meant to escape from. Colditz – The Legend, Yesterday 2014
All of them were officers, and most had already escaped from at least one POW camp. ibid.
The Colditz inmates will try everything they can to break out. ibid.
The Kantine Tunnel Escape January 1941 & The Naked Escape October 1942 & The Franz Josef Escape September 43 & The Glider January 1944 & The Final Escape 25th September 1944 … ibid.
Allied forces surrounded Colditz ... The Americans began shelling it. ibid.
At least it’s nice to know you’re wanted. The Great Escape 1963 starring Steve McQueen & James Garner & Richard Attenborough & James Donald & Charles Bronson & Donald Pleasence & James Coburn & Hannes Messemer & David McCallum & Gordon Jackson & John Leyton & Angus Lennie & Nigel Stock et al, director John Sturgess, Group Captain Ramsey to German Colonel
50 of your officers were shot while escaping. ibid. German Colonel to Ramsey
Do you think it was worth the price? ibid. Hendley
All that’s left a hole in the ground … ‘He just staged a spectacular escape from prison.’ The Rise and Fall of El Chapo, CI 2017
The brutal gun-battle lasted for almost an hour … El Chapo was nowhere to be seen. ibid.
Brazen prison escapes captivate the imagination but leave local communities terrified. From behind bars only a few have shown the ingenuity, the patience and the sheer nerve to achieve what’s supposed to be impossible – escape from America’s most secure prisons. America’s Greatest Prison Breaks, History 2017
June 5th 2015: prisons Richard Matt and David Sweat slip out of their cells through holes they began carving five months earlier … ibid.
There are 10.5 escapes per 10,000 prisoners – half as many as fifteen years ago. ibid.
Alcatraz Prison 11th June 1962: at 9.37 pm prisoners Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin slip through holes in the 6 x 9 inch vents they’ve been chiselling out and widening for months. ibid.
July 11th 2015 Mexico: El Chapo Guzman, the head of one of Mexico’s most notorious drug cartels … ibid.
December 13th 2000 John B Connally Unit Karnes Texas: All seven were in a pick-up truck driving through the prison’s back gate to freedom. ibid.
[Richard Lee] McNair: pulled off one of the most ingenious prison breaks in US history … the hollowed-out pile of mailbags. ibid.
Throughout the War Stalag Luft 3 remained the chief camp for British and American air force pilots … In April of 1943 the POWs in Stalag Luft 3 began to dig 3 tunnels known to insiders as Tom, Dick and Harry … On March 25th 1944, only 6 weeks before the planned invasion of Normandy, 76 men at Stalag Luft 3 made it through the tunnel called Harry and emerged beyond the barbed wire of the camp. Secrets of War s1e48: Prisoners of War Part II: Battle for the Mind, 1998
It was too overcrowded, too understaffed, too hard up for money. But they were pretty nice to me. And if I hadn’t got too damned restless that they made it too damned easy to escape. After Dark My Sweet 1990 starring Jason Patric & Rocky Giordani & Rachel Ward & Bruce Dern & Mike Hagerty & George Dickerson & Corey Carrier et al, director James Foley, opening monologue
He’s getting further away every second. Quick Change 1990 starring Bill Murray & Geena Davis & Randy Quaid & Jason Robards & Tony Shalhoub & Philip Bosco & Phil Hartman & Jamey Sheriday & Stanley Tucci & Kurtwood Smith & Bob Elliott et al, director Howard Franklin & Bill Murray, Rotzinger
Manouche: Gu’s escaped.
Alban: We’ve got to find him and hide him. Le Deuxieme Souffle 1966 starring Lino Ventura & Paul Meurisse & Raymond Pellegrin & Christine Fabrega & Marcel Bozzuffi & Denis Manuel & Michel Constantin & Pierre Zimmer & Pierre Grasset & Paul Frankeur et al, director Jean-Pierre Melville
Dramatic news of the man responsible for the world’s biggest bank robbery in Nice last year when thieves got away with a sum believed by police to be as much as $25 million. Apparently, while the criminal was being questioned in a Nice courtroom building this morning, he jumped from a second floor window and escaped. Sewers of Gold aka The Great Riviera Bank Robbery aka Dirty Money 1979 starring Ian McShane & Warren Clarke & Stephen Greif & Christopher Malcolm & Nigel Humphreys & Eric Mason & Matthew Long & Alain Guano & Barry Lowe & Jonathan Elsom & Arnold Diamond et al, director Francis Megahy
I wish I could do that sometimes – escape myself. House of Cards s3e10: Chapter 36, Netflix 2015
In 1962 three inmates, Frank Morris and John and Clarence Anglin decided to test its reputation. Suddenly the largest manhunt in thirty years was underway. Mysteryquest: Devil’s Island, History 2009
Of the thirty-six prisoners who risked their lives to get off the island, twenty-three were quickly recaptured, six were gunned down by guards before they reached the water, two were drowned and their bodies were recovered, while two others are listed as missing and presumed drowned. ibid.
On 11th June 1962 Morris and the Anglins slipped through their cell walls and began climbing up a utility shaft. They crossed the roof and shimmied down a drainpipe to reach the ground. ibid.