The Great Escape

N.p. Associated British Picture Corporation, 1951. Two original ribbon copy typescripts and one carbon copy typescript of reader's summary and reports for the 1950 book by Paul Brickhill, made for the Associated British Picture Corporation (ABPC) in 1951. Unique.

One four-page ribbon copy typescript report by ABPC reader E. Rutherford, dated "April 1951," with a purple rubber stamp stating "RECEIVED / 6 Apr 1951." And a five-page ribbon copy typescript report by ABPC reader T.J. Morrison, dated "31st May, 1951," with a purple rubber stamp stating "RECEIVED / 6 Jun 1951." The carbon copy typescript is of the four-page "April 1951" report, with two purple rubber stamps stating "RECEIVED / 6 Apr 1951," with one stamp also noting for "Mr. Robert Clark's Office" (Robert Clark was the head of production at ABPC during the late 1940s and 1950s).

One of the most powerful media conglomerates in British cinema history, the Associated British Picture Corporation (ABPC) was founded in 1927 when John Maxwell acquired British National Pictures Studios and its Elstree Studios complex, first named British International Pictures (BIP).

The company was renamed ABPC in 1933 after acquiring British Pathé, enabling the company to become a fully vertically integrated studio capable of producing, distributing, and exhibiting its own pictures. Following Maxwell's death in 1940, Warner Bros. purchased a large stake in the company, allowing ABPC to distribute its films into the lucrative US market, as well as taking an active stake in television by launching the Associated British Corporation (ABC). Amid the downturn in the British film industry by the late 1960s, EMI staged an aggressive takeover of ABPC in 1969, and by 1970 the name was officially retired.

At the height of ABPC's success in the 1950s and 1960s, its readers reviewed nearly everything being published, from established authors to those with recent screen success, to emerging new authors, in search of material for film adaptation. The resulting reader's summary and reports are an extraordinary record of mid-twentieth century literature never intended for public consumption and unseen since their composition.

Both reader's summary and reports are written in the ABPC house style, with source material information at the top of the first page (each noting submission by a literary agent for Brickhill), followed by a summary and main characters, then a detailed synopsis followed by the reader's comments on the material's quality and filmic possibilities.

The four-page "April 1951" report by ABPC reader Rutherford notes as main characters only "the guards and prisoners of Stalag Luft III," and is notably succinct in the comments, "Would make a good film if the "Wooden Horse" hadn't already been done." ("The Wooden Horse" was a 1950 British film based on the 1949 book by screenwriter Eric Williams.)

The five-page "31st May, 1951" report by ABPC reader Morrison notes five of the characters under principal characters, and includes a five paragraph comment in which Morrison addresses the difference between this story and "The Wooden Horse" brought by the former reader. Morrison also concludes however, that the story is not "cinematic" enough, as "the major part of the book is devoted to the preparation rather than to the escape itself," and "the grisly aftermath when, ... fifty of the recaptured men were butchered piecemeal in cold blood." Morrison concludes "This true story is on historical record for all time so it would not, in my opinion, be possible to fictionalise it for 'box office' reasons."

Australian author Paul Brickhill's insider's account of the March 1944 mass escape from the Nazi German Luftwaffe prisoner of war camp Stalag Luft III by British and Commonwealth enemy airmen was published in 1950. It was adapted for live television as an episode of the NBC television series "The Philco Television Playhouse" in 1951, and in 1963 for the classic epic US film directed by John Sturges, starring Steve McQueen, James Garner, and Richard Attenborough.

8 x 13 inches, each perforation binding, carbon copy typescript with a two hole punch to the left side. Near Fine.

[Book #172918]