Best movie of this year hands down!

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

This TV film has gone by different titles, among them: "The Birdmen," "Escape of the Birdmen, and "Colditz: Escape of the Birdmen." I have the latter. Nowhere does the name, Colditz Castle, appear in the movie. The film centers around a fictional German camp called Bechstadt or something like that. But, the script refers to it as the German POW camp for Allied officer escapees; so, obviously, it would be Colditz – the only such camp. This film seems to be a mix of two or more wartime movies I've seen. It borrows themes and sub-plots here and there and puts them together in this one movie of action and escape. But it has too many far-fetched situations to be believable. It has a Norwegian scientist posing as a Norwegian pilot who has been on the lamb for a year trying to get over to the Allies. But, the movie takes place in 1943, and the Germans occupied Norway in April 1940. So what was the scientist doing and where was he the first two years of German occupation? Next we have an American major in the OSS (military secret service) who intentionally gets captured so he can help the Norwegian escape. But, how did the two happen to hook up in a northern German POW camp? In the opening scene, a German patrol boat intercepts a radio message to London. The message reads, "Chess board in position," and that is what accounts for the setup for this film. Then we see the hero, American Major Harry Cook (played just fairly by Doug McClure) working in the supply room of a German POW camp near the Baltic Sea. How and where did he get captured? The Norwegian scientist-pilot, Halden Brevik, is a brand new arrival at that camp drawing his supplies. When and where did he get captured? How did the Allies know in advance of Brevik's capture? How could they put one of their own in the very POW camp Brevik would go to – and ahead of him? How did the two know the password to identify each other?Next we see a diversion back in London. Plans are taking shape for a bombing raid. One scene has a phony voice-over of a briefing with an officer pointing to a target on a blackboard. The production quality is terrible. Then, during an Allied bombing raid, Cook and Brevik escape the POW camp together. Soon they are re-captured. Since they are escapees, they are now sent to the special maximum security prison for such Allied officers. That would be Colditz Castle, but they call it Bechstadt here.In reality, Colditz had British, French, Belgian, Dutch and Polish POWs, with a smattering of others. Just a few Americans were sent there near the end of the war. But, most of the main characters in this film are Americans. The ranking POW officer is one – Col. Morgan Crawford, played very poorly by Chuck Connors. Indeed, most of the real British officers from Colditz are made into or replaced by Americans. The film has a number of well-known actors for the period, but no one gives a very good performance. Another big discrepancy is a number of prisoners killed, and a graveyard within the castle. Only one prisoner was killed trying to escape from Colditz during its six years as a prison. One recurring thing in this film has no basis in history. But, I suppose the filmmakers saw in this some great pull with the American TV audience. We see and hear men singing a 19th Century German folk song, "Die Gedanken sind frei." Crawford tells Cook that it's a song about freedom of thought that Jewish prisoners sing in the concentration camps. This is 1943, and the Allied forces knew about the existence of concentration camps but very little more. How in the world would Allied pilots who have been imprisoned since 1940 to 1943 know anything about a song that Jews were singing in concentration camps? I've never read or heard anything like this. Today this seems to be just a piece of gratuitous fiction thrown into the script for this movie. It's a good example of why we shouldn't trust movies for our knowledge of history. The castle in this film is located near the Swiss border. In a couple of scenes, Commandant Schiller (played fairly well by Richard Basehart), admires the view of the Swiss Alps "just 10 miles away." But we don't see it ourselves. In reality, Colditz Castle is located about 25 miles SE of Leipzig in eastern Germany. That's more than 300 miles from the Swiss Alps. It is about 35 miles from the Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic) border, and about 45 miles from Poland.At the very end of this movie, Crawford and Brevik escape together in a glider that the prisoners launched from a roof of the castle. The Colditz prisoners actually had built and concealed a glider, with plans to launch it from the roof for an escape in the direction of Poland. But, by that time, the U.S. Army captured the town and liberated the Colditz prisoners in April 1945. This movie has some good early action and bombing scenes. But, I can't rate it higher than five stars. The acting is just fair at best; the production qualities are very poor, and the setup is just too far- fetched. Again, the script and plot imply a location and historical events, but the film hardly resembles the real place and events. For a very good film about the famous Colditz Castle POW camp, see the 1955 British movie, "The Colditz Story." It's based on a book by Patrick Reid, one of the first escapees to get back home to England.

The song that the prisoners sang was "Die Gedanken sind frei" Which roughly translates to My thoughts are free. It told the Germans that although you have my body in prison, you will never imprison have my spirit. This movie is one of my all time favorites. As a kid growing up, I loved movies and songs that showed American ingenuity. The premise of building a glider to escape from prison fascinated me. You can see the German words to the song at the following website: http://www.online.ee/~pikka/voorlaul.html#50 If you want to know what the words mean, copy and paste the test to Google's translation program.

I saw this movie twice on TV in the 70's when I was only ten years old and it became my favorite movie of all time. It also made me fall in love with Rene Auberjonois. I've been searching for any news on it for THIRTY years. I even wrote to Rene to see if he could give me any info. Now here you are. People just like me who love this movie. I thought I was all alone. I've found you at last. It's been a long time to wait.For 15 years I didn't even have the name of the movie correct which made it very difficult. When people ask me what my favorite movie is and I reply "The Birdmen", they look at me like I've got a banana growing out of my ear. When all alone I've been one of a chosen few. It must be a classic movie to have endured all these years and still have an active fan base.

It has been over 30 years since I've seen the movie "The Birdmen." I only remember bits and pieces---one scene that comes to mind is a song one of the captured POWs sing that really bothered the Germans. Even after all these years, I still remember that melody. I'm hoping to try and find it on VHS or DVD-now that I know what the title is. (Thank you IMDb.com). When it first aired, I remember my brother and I watching it. Since neither of us really cared about history-we only watched it for our own reasons. I was a fan of Chuck Connors and my brother liked Richard Baseheart. And of course; we both knew who Max Baer, Jr was. It would make a welcome addition to anyones video/DVD library.