Escape to Victory Escape to Victory Escape to Victory, known simply as Victory in North America, is a 1981 American film about Allied prisoners of war who are interned in a German prison camp during the Second World War who play an exhibition match of football against a German team. The film was directed by John Huston and starred Sylvester Stallone, Michael Caine, Max von Sydow, Pelé, and Daniel Massey. The film received great attention upon its theatrical release, as it also starred professional footballers Bobby Moore, Osvaldo Ardiles, Kazimierz Deyna, Paul Van Himst, Mike Summerbee, Hallvar Thoresen, Werner Roth and Pelé. Numerous
John Huston to play the young Union soldier who deserts his company out of fear, but later returns to fight alongside them. MGM, however, saw the message of the movie as too antiwar. Without Huston's input, they cut down the running time of the film from eighty-eight minutes to sixty-nine, added narration, and deleted what Huston felt was a crucial scene. The movie did poorly at the box office. Huston suggests that it was possibly because it "brought war very close to home." Huston recalls that at the preview showing, before the film was halfway through, "damn near a third of the