In 1981, John Huston, who gave us such films as “The Price of Parables”, “The Man Who Wanted to Be King” and “Treasures of the Sierra Madre”, decides to put stars such as Michael Caine, Max von Sidoff, Sylvester Stallone, and also football legends Pele, Ardiles, Bobby Moore and others.

Although the film did not receive the kind of reviews that the lead director would have liked, it managed to stay in history, mainly due to the presence of “King” Pele in it, as well as other very large players who took part.

The story revolves around a group of prisoners of war in a German concentration camp who are asked to play a football match against a Nazi team in an attempt to plan their escape, which they succeed at the end of the match as the world enters the stadium and runs away from them.

The film was originally based on the Hungarian film drama Two Half Hours in Hell (original title: Két félidö a pokolban), directed by Zoltan Fabri and which won the Critics’ Prize at the 1962 Boston Film Festival.

Both were inspired by the true story of FC Start, a team made up of Dynamo and Lokomotiv Kyiv players who worked in a bakery that baked bread for German soldiers.

FC “Start” began to play against teams supported by the occupation government of Ukraine, as well as teams of German soldiers. In one game, they defeated a German air force base 8-0, and urban legend has it that all the players were executed.

However, in reality, eight FC Start players were arrested by the Gestapo, mainly because they were accused of participating in the resistance and sent to concentration camps. Four of them were executed, but it is unclear whether they were finally brought to the detachment due to the victory over the Nazi team.

The mere presence of Pele, who only four years ago hung up his shoes on a nail, was a guarantee of his recognition in Latin America and Europe. The “King” plays in the film Corporal Luis Fernandez, who, according to the script, learned to play football by kicking oranges as a young man in his country of Trinidad, and not in Brazil, which entered the war in 1943, with the action taking place in the early years of conflicts ( 1941 or 1942).

Pelé took it upon himself to help stage the match scenes by creating the “choreography” of all the players’ movements. Among them is his back-scissor goal in the final, which makes even “Nazi” but football fan Max von Sydoff stand up and applaud: “It makes me so emotional when I see those scenes again. I’m holding back not to cry. I only say thank you,” Pele will say at some point about his participation in the “Great Escape 11”.

Although the film featured the “holy monsters” of world cinema, such as Michael Caine and Max von Sidoff, they, like John Huston and other professional players, had to put up with Sylvester Stallone, who behaved arrogantly towards the rest. .

He already had Rocky 1 and Rocky 2, the first of which won an Oscar for Best Picture in 1977 and required special treatment. He did not eat with the rest of the cast, but traveled by private jet to Paris or London every weekend, as the film was filmed in Budapest and at the MTC Budapest stadium, not in Paris, where the match between the prisoners took place. and Nazis.

And this is because at that time, more modern buildings began to be built around the stage of the Yves du Manoir affair, where the 1924 Olympics were held, which could not have been in the early 1940s.

Stallone insisted on being called to the set only when everything was ready for his role, as he said he was especially busy writing the script for Rocky 3.

The script called for him to play Robert Hatch, an American who served in the Canadian Army and wanted to join the football team to stage his escape while playing goalkeeper.

Gordon Banks took over his “education”, since the Italian-American actor had no idea about football, but nevertheless did not heed the advice of the great English goalkeeper.

He also did not want to be voiced by a professional actor, given that he can film all the scenes himself. So, on the first day of filming, he suffered a dislocated shoulder and also broke one of his ribs, as a result of which he was later much more careful about what Banks told him.

In fact, at one point, while trying to stop Pelé’s penalty, he also broke his finger. When filming ended, Stallone stated that it was a much harder experience than even Rocky. “I thought Rocky was cool, but I never trained as hard as I did at Victory. I thought football was a female sport until I got kicked in the stomach and had to go to Austria with bruises on both thighs,” he later said, referring to the film and in an interview in 2013: “It was one of the biggest practical jokes of my life. How he spoiled me. I still have a broken finger from trying to stop a Pelé penalty. He wore a pair of World War II iron-toed boots, and the ball looked like a bomb. It was twice as thick and heavy as today. He told me that he was going to take a shot, and I thought that football is like that, relax. It’s simple. He told me exactly where he was going to send the ball. So I went straight there, but again the ball went past me before I could move. And he sent her exactly where he promised. Then he did it again and tore the net behind my back and broke the window from the barracks where we were filming. Then I respected him from the very beginning.”

At one point, Stallone wanted to change the script and become the player who scores the last goal instead of Pelé, which the producers and Houston did not accept.

The reviews received for The Great Escape 11 were not very good, although the audience liked it, mainly due to the presence of big football stars who took part, as it was the first time in the history of the big screen.

The film was not liked by its creator, John Huston, who later stated that he hated it and only made it for the money. The same length and its screenwriter Jabo Jablonski, who, having seen the corrections in the final script, wanted to … commit suicide.

The original was more like the story of FC Start, as the group of prisoners had two choices. In the event of a defeat, the players were released to Switzerland, and in the event of a victory, a firing squad was waiting for them. They decided to play to win and they were all executed, an ending that was considered too hard by Hollywood standards.

As for Stallone, he admitted why he wanted to work with Houston, while Michael Caine later admitted that the only reason he agreed to play was to get closer to Pele. In addition, the great British actor was already 47 years old at the time of filming and could not convince the West Ham player.

In total, 18 professional football players from different countries participate in the film, both in regular roles and as understudies. In addition to Pele, Bobby Moore and Osvaldo Ardiles, Scot John Wark, Irishman Kevin O’Callaghan, Pole Kazimierz Dein, Norwegian Halvar Thoresen, Belgian Paul Van Himst, Dane Soren Lindstedt, American Werner Roth, Englishman Mike Summerbee, and Englishman Russell Osman, the Dutchman Co Prince and the Englishman Laurie Sivell, who played for the Germans as a goalkeeper.

Many of the Ipswich players were used in the film, mostly filling in for some scenes.

It is worth noting that the Hungarian Imre Bonda also took part in the film at the age of 18 as a Nazi player who later came to Greece to become the top scorer in the Volos Olympic jersey while he also wore the OFI jersey.