Way too flabby at 168 minutes, but once this 1963 feature gets going it’s good, solid stuff, directed with an unusual lack of rhetoric by John Sturges (Bad Day at Black Rock). Steve McQueen cemented his myth as the POW who makes his break on a motorcycle, while James Coburn, Richard Attenborough, James Garner, Charles Bronson, and Donald Pleasence fill out the slow spots with sharp character work.