A while ago, I wittered on about the merits of the film "Four Weddings and a Funeral" in one of these 'ere columns. As it happens, that film has been in my thoughts on and off this past week or so, mainly due to the fact that Mrs C and I have been enjoying an earlier performance by one of the film's cast. The lady in question is Anna Chancellor, who plays 'Duckface' in "Four Weddings..." (a nickname which a wonderfully naive Ms Chancellor once explained on "This Morning" as being as near to ****face as they could get away with - at the time it was probably the most shocking thing to go out on daytime TV, other than Richard and Judy themselves of course, and even though it has now been trumped by Caprice discussing the Vagina Monologues, it remains a rather lovely moment). But before being cast as the sort of woman who might nearly but not quite end up marrying Hugh Grant, Anna Chancellor appeared in "Jupiter Moon", and over the past ten days we at Curnow Towers have watched the first twenty episodes on DVD - and unless there's anything exciting on the box tonight, we will probably be up to twenty-two (at least) by the time you read this.

Despite the risk of over-hyping it, Nathan's ravings over "Jupiter Moon" have turned out to be thoroughly justified. My other half normally avoids anything with even a hint of soap opera to it (which seems rather ironic when you consider that her family seems to be one) but even she has very quickly become hooked. However, I think all that is probably best saved for another column and another time - at the very least until we've watched the ten episodes that make up the third DVD set, and with the fourth set coming out in April it may even have to wait till then. At the moment we've only just emerged from the plasma ball to find a strangely silent Space City on Jupiter, and we've absolutely no idea what's going to happen next. Will Herli ever manager to elbow Finbow? Will Melody and Jean-Francoise really get married? Will we ever get to meet Bob, the elusive long-distance lover (from Liverpo-- sorry, from Nottingham)? And perhaps most tantalising of all, will Victoria ever stop moaning?

But the reason for mentioning "Four Weddings and a Funeral" (cast your mind back to the top of the page) is really as an example of the power of coincidence. I described it way back when as a coffee-table sort of movie, in that you can dip in and out at your leisure; and by chance I happened across another film yesterday of which the same claim could be made.

Normally of a Saturday morning, after being woken up at as few minutes after seven as Little Miss thinks she can get away with, I have a trawl of the internet, catch up on messages and generally take my time to wake up, while Little Miss watches Boomerang, or the Discovery Kids channel, and generally takes her sweet time to eat her breakfast. This morning, for whatever reason, Little Miss wasn't too bothered about watching TV - since Boomerang were showing a Pink Panther cartoon in which he actually speaks (incidentally he sounded like a bad Steve Martin impressionist - who'd have guessed) and Discovery Kids were showing the episode of "Henry's World" in which he takes a gorilla to Show & Tell (again!!) she decided that she wanted to go on the computer instead of me.

The other day Mrs C found a Barbie My Scene website (My Scene, My Scene, You Know What I Mean - if you haven't heard the jingle, be grateful; and if you want to ensure you never do, don't have a daughter) and Little Miss is now a regular visitor. It consists of a whole host of Barbie-related activities, is indecently pink and perky, and is again something which deserves a column to itself when I can face it (so in about seven months time, according to my therapist). But with the computer taken, I was forced to resort to the TV, and after an increasingly depressing trawl through too many channels with too little on, I happened across... "The Great Escape".

I realise that it's a well-respected film, and was certainly made and sold as a BIG movie, but although never intended to be one, I still maintain it's another perfect coffee table movie. It falls into three very clear sections - planning to escape, escaping, escaped - so no matter which part you come across, it's immediately apparent what's going on. That's not to say that it's a simplistic film - although the plot is fairly straightforward in principle, there is an awful lot of incident, a great depth of character detail, and lots of separate strands woven into the one story - but it is nevertheless very easy to dip into.

To add yet more to the increased absurdity levels at Curnow Towers (you may remember that I had a magazine delivered last week of which I've only read half) I watched forty-five minutes or so of "The Great Escape" with the sound off! It probably goes without saying, but I've yet to find a website aimed at children which doesn't come complete with sound, usually character voices and more often than not some jingle which very quickly becomes annoying through sheer repetition. My Scene, My Scene is no exception (You Know What I Mean) and so bowing to the inevitable, I muted the TV, and slowly allowed the coffee to percolate through my circulatory system as I watched.

Looking at it now, it's almost like a game of spot the star - whether all the stars in the film were big names at the time they made "The Great Escape" I don't honestly know. The tempting false idol that is the IMDB could doubtless tell me, but even without it, it's obvious that the film contains some extremely accomplished actors. Indeed, it's probably telling that I don't know any of the character names, just the actors. There's probably a comedy sketch out there somewhere, and if there isn't then maybe I should knock one up quick and flog it to Alistair McGowan, involving a fanatical group of unemployed extras locking up all the Hollywood star names, so that they themselves can get some work. "You vill be imprisoned here, Mr Cruise, viz Mr McQueen. For you Tommy, ze career is over."

It's quite a film that can boast such a castlist as Donald Pleasance, Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson, James Garner. What's doubly interesting is that in with the mix of well-respected movie actors, there's also a host of fine British character actors, so that we get Angus Lennie in a double-act with Steve McQueen (just consider how surreal that is). We also have Gordon Jackson teamed with Richard Attenborough. And not just them - David McCallum is in it too; so is Nigel Stock (he's clearly playing an RAF chap, since not only does he sport a handlebar moustache he's also wearing the longest scarf seen on screen until Tom Baker). For that matter, although with all due respect probably not quite in the same league as the others, one can also spot William Russell (at the time probably best known as the star of "The Adventures of Sir Lancelot" on ITV, and later in 1963 to be cast in some kids show about a time-travelling police box).

But for all that, it still comes across as an ensemble piece, rather than a bunch of stars all trying to outdo each other. It almost, right at the very end, seems to be trying to showcase McQueen's character as the central figure, but it doesn't really succeed in that, with the result that it really does have a feeling of a team effort. Each of the characters has their own story, their own journey, and their own little moments - whether it's Donald Pleasance' forger, who finds himself having to cope with blindness; or Charles Bronson struggling with claustrophobia while digging the tunnels. Next time you watch it (and you know you will, sooner or later) just take a look as the expression changes on Angus Lennie's face when the door closes behind him in the cooler for the first time - for those more accustomed to his rather OTT (but deservedly legendary) Shughie McFee, the quality and subtlety of the acting may come as a surprise. Even the smaller parts are beautifully written and played, from the camp commandant (watch the scene near the end when he is clearly ashamed to tell his prisoner that the Germans have killed 50 escapees, or the early scene where he only returns the Nazi salute after sorting out his paperwork) through to the tailor knocking up civvy street suits for the escapees ("even rather nice lounge suits").

Of course, if they made it nowadays (and the pessimist in me says that it can only be a matter of time before some egoist in the Hollywood hills decides it should be remade) they would absolutely ruin it. For one thing, all the characters would now be swearing like troopers, to make it more "realistic" (I hate that argument, and I'm going to back away from the whole subject now because I can already feel my blood pressure going up just thinking about it). More significantly, and to be honest it surprises me even for a film made in the 1960s, I can't nowadays see a big film being made where the men in charge of organising the escape, are all British, with the Americans effectively answering to them. If it was made in the USA, that would be the first thing to be changed; and if it was made in the UK... well, it wouldn't be a big film would it.

But as it is, and for whatever reason, it's become one of those films that everybody seems to know, whether they've seen it or not. Even as a kid (and it suddenly dawns on me, that when I first saw it the film was no more than fifteen years old - now it's forty-two!) I remember being excited about watching it when it came on TV - and there aren't any other war films I can say that about. Little Miss, who by the time the film was ending had left the My Scene, My Scene, You Know What I Mean website and had drifted upstairs to get dressed (well, it is a very long film) returned to the sitting-room in time to catch the final scenes, of McQueen's return to the camp; and even she recognised the music (from an episode of "The Simpsons" in fact).

Perhaps that's one of the reasons it's become a coffee-table film (or conversely maybe it's just a side-effects of it being one). There are certain parts of it which are instantly recognisable even out of context. If you make reference to dropping earth out of your trousers (and I'm sure we've all had conversations where it's come up) people know what you're talking about; if the music is used in a TV show, an advert, whatever, we all make the connection. And for all that it's a serious film, played seriously, about a very serious event, it somehow manages to become, ultimately, a feel-good movie. Despite the many deaths, there are still some light-hearted moments - the instances of excited invention (McCallum demonstrating the mud-droppers, Garner scrounging everything he can find) and more than that, it has a real vibe, a real feeling of the triumph of human spirit. McQueen gets the last scene in the film, and despite all that has happened, his character (and by extension all the others) remains unbroken; and let's not forget that Bronson and his young friend, and James Coburn, do actually manage to escape.

In recent years there has been some doubt cast over how accurate the story is, and particularly the shocking massacre of fifty of the recaptured prisoners (including Attenborough, Jackson and Stock) towards the end of the film. I don't know whether the claim that this did not happen was revisionism driven by political correctness (or to put it another way, the modern political climate of "Don't mention the war") or whether some clear proof was uncovered that the men had in fact been returned to prison. But I have to assume that at the time the film was made, it was genuinely believed to be true - although you might conceivably create such a scene for dramatic purposes, you would be unlikely to dedicate the film "To the Fifty" if you didn't think they had ever really existed.

But that's letting a real world dispute taint what remains a satisfying, powerful, watchable film. And on another level, even if the massacre scene is incorrect, most of the minutiae of the escape is true. That in itself is cause to marvel - that armed with nothing but whatever they could find, these men produced clothes and documents for hundreds of people, and they dug three tunnels literally under their captors' noses. Their determination to escape, to get back to the war, is something that on one level I find hard to understand, but nevertheless it makes for a film that has the ability to not only entertain but to uplift.

Looking at the TV listings this morning I see that the film is on again today, so maybe Sky Movies are showing it regularly this week - if so, try and catch it if you can, and you won't be disappointed. As for us here at Curnow Towers, this morning Little Miss was happy to watch Boomerang once more, which meant that I could get my hands on the computer. So at least today, breakfast went by without my being bombarded by the My Scene jingle. Now that really is a great escape.