Regardless of its veracity as a true story, PAPILLON is a wonderful piece of movie-making. It's a prison breakout movie that transcends its genre origins to become a study of the human condition, exploring man's endurance and survival against the harshest elements. Featuring a couple of stand-out turns from the lead actors, this is an underrated classic and a film that you never hear much about, which is criminal.

Steve McQueen, still effortlessly cool a good ten years or so after THE GREAT ESCAPE, plays another con, this time a Frenchman with the tattoo of a butterfly on his chest - hence his name, 'Papillon'. He's sent to a French penal colony in Guyana, where he endures the kind of extreme conditions that would send most of us to the loony bin. The film that follows is absolutely gripping from beginning to end, even though it's fairly slow-paced for a lot of it.

It's worth mentioning Dustin Hoffman, lending brilliant support as the short-sighted fellow con, and Franklin J. Schaffner's direction, which wrings every drop of sweat out of the grimy and dirty conditions. I'm also guessing this must have been a big hit in Italy, because the cannibal movie sub-genre that followed shamelessly rips this film off, from the jungle traps and natives to the crippled man attempting to navigate the depths of the jungle with only a stick to help him.