JERICHO, NY, June 4, 2002 – On Thursday, June 13, actor Christian Slater hosts AMC's "Enlisted With Christian Slater" festival. Marking the June 14 release of Slater's latest film, WINDTALKERS (MGM), a WW II drama co-starring Nicholas Cage, the festival showcases two other World War II films, THE GREAT ESCAPE, starring Steve McQueen, and FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE, starring Harrison Ford. There will also be a red carpet edition of AMC's Emmy Award-winning, weekly series BEHIND THE SCREEN, spotlighting the making of WINDTALKERS.
The festival begins at 8:00 PM (ET) with the epic THE GREAT ESCAPE (1963). Steve McQueen heads up an all-star cast including James Garner, Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson, Donald Pleasence, James Coburn and David McCallum as a group of allied POWs who engineer an ambitious mass breakout from a high-security Nazi prison camp. Based on a true story, the film deftly combines comedy and suspense as it details how they fooled their captors and dispersed across Europe. Next, at 11:00 PM (ET), Harrison Ford and Robert Shaw portray elite military commandos on a mission to destroy a bridge critical to the Nazi's advance across Europe in FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE (1978). Carl Weathers co-stars.
The festival concludes at 1:30 AM with BEHIND THE SCREEN RED CARPET SPECIAL: WINDTALKERS, hosted by John Burke. The episode looks at the making of Slater's newest film. The MGM release, inspired by true events in World War II, stars Slater and Nicholas Cage as Marines assigned to protect Navajo soldiers sought by the Japanese for an unbreakable radio code they developed based on the Navajo language. Directed by John Woo, the film opens on Friday, June 14.
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